hinese President Hu Jintao took office in March 2003 as the hand picked candidate of Jiang Zemin, replacing President Deng Xiaoping. As the anointed leader of the fourth generation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hu was compared to Mikhail Gorbachev for his reformist platforms. However, unlike Gorbachev, Hu has done relatively little to improve life for Chinese citizens. Censorship of the media, imprisonment of dissidents, monitoring of internet activity and executing dissenters are all tactics Hu's government uses to control citizens' access to information. According to the U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices for 2002, the government Hu inherited from his predecessor had a poor human rights record that made only superficial attempts to improve its image.
After Hu took office, economic aspects of life in China improved, as urban living standards, greater entrepreneurial autonomy and privatization of state enterprises continued, but the government's human rights record was unchanged. The 2004 U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices concluded:
"although legal reforms continued, there was backsliding on key human rights issues during the year, including arrests of individuals discussing sensitive subjects on the internet, health activists, labor protestors, defense lawyers, journalists, house church members, and other seeking to take advantage of the space created by reforms."
FreedomHouse.org listed China as "not free" in its 2003 analysis of the country. Millions
of citizens are allowed to use the internet, but the government strictly censors what they can view with internet security monitors. For those who dare to speak out against censorship and communism, arrest and detention are likely possibilities.
Dissidents who speak out against the one party system can be jailed, tortured, or executed. In Reporters Without Borders' 2003 Analysis of China, it was noted, "the preparations for the 16th Congress of the Communist Party gave rise to intense ideological campaigns and more crackdowns on cyber-dissidents." At the end of 2002, 11 journalists were in prison, and foreign journalists were restricted in their access to information about AIDS, worker strikes, corruption and other sensitive topics.
Religious freedom is limited by the state as well, and though Buddhism is the most popular religion, Catholicism, Islam and Falun Gong also have a following. According to FreedomHouse.org's Center for Religious Freedom, as of October 2003, Catholic Bishops were imprisoned, Christian churches are destroyed on a regular basis, approximately 400 Buddhist temples were closed, and Falun Gong practitioners were regularly imprisoned, tortured and beaten. In September and October of 2003, the Center reported that 44 Falun Gong followers died at the hands of Chinese authorities for practicing their religion.
