China is often criticized for human rights violations through the United Nations and the west’s media based on European and North American values.
For instance, my last trip to China was in 2008, and we heard about an incident from a friend, a witness to an event that involved the police and two Chinese citizens: a single man in his late forties, who lived in the same building our friend lived in, and one of his girlfriends.
The older 40-year-old man’s girlfriend was in her early twenties, and she called the police from his apartment and claimed she’d been raped. After police officers arrived on the scene of the alleged crime, she demanded, “Arrest and punish him!”
The original single family house in what was once the French sector in Shanghai was now shared by several families; each family had one or two rooms divided up between two floors in what was once a three-story house. The bottom floor was occupied by a clothing shop.
The neighbors, including our Chinese friend, from the 2nd and 3rd floors, crowded the hall outside an open door to witness what was happening. The police officers, who had arrived on the scene, calmly heard both sides and everyone learned that there had been no actual forced rape. It turned out that the woman had discovered her boyfriend, who was more than twice her age, had two other girlfriends and one of them was twenty years older than he was.
“He asked me to strip,” she said. “He is corrupt.”
The officer studied her, and then the man. The woman was several inches taller and at least twenty pounds heavier. “You have legs. You could leave,” the officer said, “But you stripped. Is that correct?”
There was the sound of laughter from the hallway audience.
The soon-to-be former, much-younger, girlfriend nodded.
“No laws have been broken,” one of the police officers said. “He is a single man and can date anyone he likes, even more than one woman. You could have said no. If you feel that you have been abused, there’s a woman’s organization that will help you. Do you want the phone number?”
“I already went to them. They won’t punish him either.”
The officer shook his head. “You will never come to this apartment again,” the officer said, and he wrote his verdict in a notebook.
China’s police do not have to read a suspected criminal his or her Miranda rights. U.S. Miranda rights do not exist in China. Arguably, In China, the police have more power than police in the U.S. We often hear about China’s human rights violations, but how can they be human rights violations when there are no laws that define them; no human rights laws to enforce?
It might help to compare a few crime statistics between the United States and China.
Nation Master.com reports the murder rate per year per 100,000 people
- China: 1.2 per 100,000
- United States: 5 per 100,000
Number of Robberies recorded by police per 100,000 people
- China: 24.5
- U.S. 146.4
Prisons Population (reported by the BBC)
- China: 1,548,498 or 118 per 100,000 people
- United States: 2,193,798 or 737 per 100,000
What did Patrick Henry say on March 23, 1775? “Give me liberty or give me death.” I wonder what Patrick Henry would say today if he were still alive and saw these compared facts.
Discover China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the man that unified China more than 2,000 years ago.
中
Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.
iLook China 