SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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47–501 CC
1998
U.S. DEMOCRACY PROMOTION PROGRAMS
IN ASIA
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
SEPTEMBER 17, 1997
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
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COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
JOHN McHUGH, New York
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ROY BLUNT, Missouri
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JIM DAVIS, Florida
RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff
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MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
MATT SALMON, Arizona
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
WALTER H. CAPPS, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
MIKE ENNIS, Subcommittee Staff Director
RICHARD KESSLER, Democratic Professional Staff Member
DAN MARTZ, Counsel
HEIDI L. HENNIG, Staff Associate
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C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State
Mr. Richard Richter, President, Radio Free Asia
Mr. William Fuller, President, Asia Foundation
Ms. Louisa Coan, National Endowment for Democracy
Ms. Sidney Jones, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch/Asia
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
The Honorable John Shattuck
Mr. Richard Richter
Mr. William Fuller
Ms. Louisa Coan
Ms. Sidney Jones
The Honorable Howard Berman, a Representative in Congress from California
Additional material submitted for the record:
Question(see footnote 1) submitted to The Honorable John Shattuck by The Honorable Howard Berman
Questions submitted to Mr. Richard Richter by The Honorable Howard Berman
Letter for the record submitted by Mr. Richter
Excerpt from Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996 concerning human rights violations in China, submitted by The Honorable John Shattuck
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1 Note: The State Department declined to provide the information.
U.S. DEMOCRACY PROMOTION PROGRAMS
IN ASIA
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1997
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
Committee on International Relations
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Bereuter (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. BEREUTER. The Subcommittee will come to order. The subject of today's hearing is U.S. Democracy Promotion Programs in Asia. Ordinarily I would wait for the Ranking Democratic Member, Mr. Berman, but Mr. Berman has been on a special task force to make recommendations on reforming the ethics process, and I know that he and the Republican Member will be going to the Rules Committee very shortly—if they are not there now—so I think he will be detained. But it is for that good reason.
I have an opening statement.
Advocacy of democracy as a form of government is now and has always been an essential and bipartisan tenet of American foreign policy. The notion of promoting democracy was a key element of the Marshall plan in the aftermath of the Second World War, and it was the underlying objective of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points.
Likewise, Henry Clay's American system and Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man rested on the people's right to elect their own government. It is a basic precept of the American psyche that democracies are more likely than dictatorships to serve the basic needs of the people. Admittedly, human rights abuses can occur in democracies, but history suggests that democratic governments, because they are more accountable, are far more respectful of the rights of their citizenry. Democracies also are more likely to permit an open economy and be more reliable U.S. trading partners. Furthermore, democratic governments have tended to be the staunchest of U.S. allies in times of crisis.
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Today the Subcommittee looks at the pace of democratization in Asia and U.S. efforts to promote democratic institutions. Certainly, Asia has witnessed a number of truly remarkable success stories. For example, one-party regimes in South Korea, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan have given way to systems where contesting parties vie for the public's support. Formerly Communist Mongolia seems to have embraced democracy with a passion, although the democratic forces experienced a reversal in the most recent election. In the Philippines, President Ramos has become one of the most ardent advocates of Asian democracy. In South Asia, the Governments of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal have all experienced peaceful transitions of government.
Even the People's Republic of China is experimenting with democratic institutions, with the elected People's National Congress assuming greater responsibility and contested elections occurring at the village level. It has gone almost unnoticed that virtually all of China's one million villages have held at least one round of elections, and most villages have held several elections.
Of course, there have been setbacks and disappointments. Most recently, the July 5th coup in Cambodia was a tragic reversal after years of, admittedly, overstated progress. In Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest despite having won an overwhelming victory in the 1990 elections. The Taliban are emerging as the victors in Afghanistan's long civil war and have brought with them a decidedly anti-democratic form of rule.
Congress traditionally has voiced strong support for efforts to encourage and broaden democratic institutions in Asia. We have supported programs designed to promote rule of law, transparency in the decisionmaking process, free and fair elections, and the free flow of information and ideas. To serve these ends, we have created semi-autonomous institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the Asia Foundation. To promote the free flow of information we have established the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
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Of course, the U.S. commitment to democracy raises certain very important, even fundamental, questions. Are the democratic values universal, or is there a uniquely Asian view of society that is at odds with the Western democratic tradition? What happens when fundamentally anti-democratic political movements come to power through the ballot box? Should the United States support all parties or only the ones that reflect our values?
When does support for democratic institutions become an intrusion into the legitimate internal affairs of another sovereign power? Can even the most enlightened democratic leadership survive if the people remain desperately poor and under-educated? What happens when the people's expectations surpass the capability of the nascent democracy to meet those expectations?
The Subcommittee is privileged today to have an exceptional group of witnesses to explore these and other questions. The Administration will be represented by the Honorable John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Secretary Shattuck has a long and distinguished career as a leader in the human rights community, previously serving as executive director of the ACLU and the vice chairman of Amnesty International. He spent a rather long afternoon before the full International Relations Committee, I understand, just last week where he presented the Administration's views on H.R. 2461, the Wolf-Spector Religious Persecution Bill. Secretary Shattuck, we are aware of your busy schedule, so your presence before the Subcommittee is appreciated.
In addition, we have three non-governmental or quasi-governmental witnesses to address these issues. The Subcommittee is pleased to welcome Richard Richter, president of RFA. As Members of the Subcommittee know, RFA has received strong support from the speaker and other congressional leaders, and we certainly will be interested in being briefed on RFA's progress.
Dr. William Fuller is president of the Asia Foundation, an institution that has been promoting democracy in Asia for over 40 years. From the National Endowment for Democracy, we welcome Ms. Louisa Coan, program officer for Asia. Ms. Coan is responsible for NED programs in over a dozen Asian countries. The Subcommittee also welcomes back Ms. Sidney Jones, executive director of Asia Watch. Ms. Jones has always proved to be an eloquent and forceful defender of the rights of the downtrodden. She most recently testified before the Subcommittee in May of this year regarding human rights conditions in Indonesia.
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Mr. BEREUTER. The Chair will tell the witnesses that your written remarks will be made a part of the record, but I ask you to limit your oral presentations to approximately 8 to 10 minutes. This will allow for a maximum amount of time for Members to ask questions. We can never guarantee anything about the congressional schedule, but it is rumored that we might be done voting for the day.
Before we hear from our witnesses, I turn first to distinguished ranking Democrat Member, Howard Berman, for any opening statement he might have. I did explain the demands that were made upon you that may have kept you from being here.
Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and it does test one's commitment to democracy to stay around for a hearing when there are no longer votes on the floor. But I do want to thank you very much for having a hearing on this subject. I think it is very important, particularly as it relates to Asia, because so frequently we are told that in this part of the world, one should not be talking about ''western values.'' I do not consider self-determination to be a western value, and so I will be very interested in this hearing and in focussing on this subject.
I do note that we have had some dramatic cuts in some of our democracy building programs over the last couple of years. I guess the National Endowment for Democracy escaped the biggest brunt of some of those cuts, but others like Asia Foundation and others took very large cuts in their programs.
We are starting the process of trying to rebuild from that lower base. I do notice that there is now a floor amendment to cut the NED funding, so I think some of the lessons we can learn from this hearing can be helpful for us as we go to the floor of Congress to defend our support for U.S. involvement in democracy building and promotion of democracy, and I once again thank you for scheduling the hearing and ask for permission to put my full statement in the record.
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Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, that will be the order.
[The prepared statememt of Mr. Berman appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you for your statement. We also have with us Congressman Alcee Hastings from Florida who has a long and enduring interest in these issues, and I would welcome any statement he might like to make.
Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again for holding this hearing, and I wish to compliment you and the Ranking Member for the extraordinary interest and work that both of you have done through the years with reference to Asia.
Mr. Chairman, I am hopeful that this particular hearing will help to enlighten me as I leave next week to go to Uzbekistan so I get into central Asia on yet another potential subject that I am sure that we will learn about from our witnesses, and I am particularly interested in the democracy subjects as it pertains to all of Asia, but going into this particular setting with such a steep learning curve, I am hopeful that I will pick up something here from John Shattuck and others that I might be able to utilize in working with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, understanding that not to be the subject here.
Additionally, Mr. Chairman, I had the good fortune of traveling with the chairman of the International Relations Committee during the last break, and am now one Member that has had the experience of going to China three times in 1 year, possibly a fourth before the year is over, and I can say that it is an area, like Mr. Berman said, where we must persist in continuing to talk about the rights of persons as it pertains to a democracy. So thank you for holding the hearing.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. We will try to make it four as we do our Hong Kong visit. It is going to be warm in here, especially with television lights, and so I would say to the audience or the witness or the Members, if they wish to remove coats or whatever, please do so.
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Secretary Shattuck, it is very nice to have your attendance here today. Thank you. Your entire statement, as I said, will be made a part of the record. You may proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN SHATTUCK, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. SHATTUCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to appear at these hearings, which you have indicated are very important, this context of our international diplomacy and efforts to promote democracy and human rights on a worldwide basis. I have a full statement, and I will reduce it considerably in my oral remarks.
The spread of democracy is both an end in itself and a means to our security and prosperity. We have a very strong national interest in pursuing democracy on a global basis. History, I think, clearly demonstrates that free nations are more reliable partners alike in maintaining peace and in conducting commerce. At the same time as you have indicated, there have been some in recent years, both in Asia and in the United States who have warned that the future will be one of a clash of civilizations, an inevitable conflict, some have said, between east and west.
At this summer's annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mr. Mahateer, declared that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a western export and called for its revision. He got a very tart and crisp reply from Secretary Albright, who responded that the concept of human rights reflects the very principle of civilization itself and the Universal Declaration is universal.
To those who dismiss the efforts to promote human rights and democracy as an expression of American pressure, let us point to figures like Mahatma Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, Corazon Aquino, Aung San Suu Kyi, Wei Jingsheng, Martin Lee, and millions of people around Asia and the rest of the world who have voted, marched, worked, been beaten, and sometimes killed for their devotion to the universality of human rights and democracy.
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Considerable progress on democracy has been made in Asia during the past decade, and I think it is important to initiate these hearings by briefly taking stock of that progress and what has occurred. Since 1986, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Bangladesh have re-entered or entered for the first time the community of democratic nations.
Moreover, in many of the remaining authoritarian countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and even China, the success of economic reforms has led to some progress in the strengthening of the rule of law and in creating some space for civil society where it did not exist before.
Today I would like to discuss with you the diverse ways in which the United States is helping Asia's new democracies to consolidate their gains, as well as how we are supporting, along with Congress, progressive forces in non-democracies. Needless to say, Asia is a vast region encompassing a great diversity of cultures, religions, ethnic groups and political and economic systems. Nevertheless, our strategy for promoting democracy in Asia is founded on the belief that the region's spectacular economic growth of recent decades provides one basis for a democratic future.
Simply put, economic development can gradually undermine authoritarianism because it can create social forces that seek to develop autonomy from the State. As Professor Gerald Curtis has recently written, ''A middle class grows that demands representation, a working class emerges that sooner or later demands the right to organize and engages in political action, and a business community that may have been spawned by the State develops its own resources and demands autonomy.''
In Asia, the relatively recent democratic transitions in Taiwan, Thailand, and South Korea all demonstrate this basic point. But let me be clear in making this point. The Administration is not endorsing a theory of economic determinism, that democracy inevitably flows from economic development.
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Economic development facilitates but does not cause the democratization. Democratization is caused by the hard work on the ground by those who promote elements of civil society. It is these individuals with whom we seek to ally ourselves. In Asia, the United States should respond to the opportunities for political reform created by widespread economic success. In the end, of course, we will tailor our democracy policies and programs to the specific circumstances in each country. No ''one size fits all'' approach.
In formulating our country strategies, we have many tools at our disposal to support our diplomatic efforts, ranging from our assistance programs on the one hand all the way over to sanctions on the other. Although I will be describing the positive measures we use in democracy assistance programs, we also can and do use negative measures where necessary, including restricting arms sales, opposing loans from international financial institutions, and cutting off bilateral and multilateral assistance where we think that is necessary in order to deal with those who have substantially curtailed democratic progress.
Our democracy assistance programs are carried out by the State Department, by USAID, and by USIA, coordinated all together through the Secretary of State. Although USAID implements most of these programs, we work together closely in order to ensure that they are in harmony with each other and in support of our policy goals. We have recently established a democracy core group in the State Department which I chair, which tries to coordinate the various elements of these internal programmatic developments.
We also make sure that our programs dovetail with the outstanding work of the Asia Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, and RFA.
Let me now briefly, Mr. Chairman, outline the four main areas in which we pursue democracy assistance in Asia. We have four goals: enhancing respect for the rule of law and human rights; encouraging the development of politically active civil society; promoting meaningful political competition through free and fair electoral processes; and fostering transparent and accountable government.
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In the area of rule of law, which in some ways is the bedrock of all efforts to promote democracy, these form a central part of our programmatic efforts for several reasons. First, a democratic society requires a legal framework that guarantees respect for human rights and encourages a degree of regularity in public and private affairs. Second, corruption and abuse of authority have an obvious impact on both economic development and democratic institutions. Third, effective public administration is essential to enhancing popular support for democracy and the protection of human rights.
My statement has many detailed examples of our programs, but let me just give you a few in this area. In Mongolia, we are beginning new activities to follow up on our earlier assistance to the new judicial system that was developed in the 1992 Constitution. Our new program will promote the concept of judicial independence both inside and outside the judiciary.
In Cambodia, as you said, Mr. Chairman, we have been assisting since 1993 indigenous human rights NGOs, who are an integral part of the effort to salvage the progress that has occurred in Cambodia despite the enormous setback that has taken place this summer. None of this assistance has been channeled through the government. Through our assistance we have helped to create a national network of human rights organizations. We are also supporting the Cambodia genocide program conducted by Yale University, which is documenting the mass killings carried out by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.
In Indonesia, our democracy assistance has also supported the promotion of human rights and the expansion of legal aid in the effort to improve legal institutions. We are assisting the major Indonesian human rights NGOs which have increased their monitoring of corruption and abuse of power. In Sri Lanka, our rule of law assistance has targeted two areas, court administration and alternative dispute resolution.
In Vietnam, we are now beginning a program to support the reform of commercial law and trade policy, essential prerequisites for the development of an open economy, transparency in government and accountability of officials in economic ministries. At the same time we pursue a very aggressive human rights dialog with the Government of Vietnam.
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In addition to these country-specific rule of law programs, we have also recently begun assisting the ASEAN Human Rights Working Group, which through the Asia Foundation provides assistance to Asian human rights NGOs. We are also supporting two regional initiatives to strengthen women's rights. First, it is devoted to increasing regional cooperation in combatting the related problems of trafficking in women and girls and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The initiative has brought together government officials, NGO representatives, doctors, lawyers, and human rights activists from countries around the region, particularly Thailand, India, and Nepal, where these problems are the most acute.
The second initiative in this area is addressing the serious problems of female migrant workers working with governments and NGO's in both home and host countries to advance reforms that would protect the rights of Asian women. The third major area is a strong civil society, independent and very active in society, but independent of government as an essential component of democracy.
We have designed our democracy programs in Asia to focus on support for indigenous organizations that engage in civic actions that promote democracy, encourage deliberation of public policy, monitor government activities, and educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities. This includes public advocacy groups, labor unions, independent media institutions, politically active professional associations, human rights and good governance organizations, and local associations that aggregate and articulate the needs of their constituents.
Let me cite just a few examples. In Mongolia, the United States has supported advocacy NGO's since the beginning of our democracy assistance program. These NGO's have played a critical role in Mongolia's successful democratic transition, having been in the vanguard of civic education, women's empowerment, and elections monitoring. In Indonesia in recent years, we have also been important supporters of the country's increasingly influential advocacy NGO's with whom I have met when I have traveled to Indonesia on several occasions, and my colleague, Stanley Roth, just last week had some very good discussions with the advocacy NGO's who were such a critical element of the developing political space in Indonesia, despite significant authoritarianism in the government.
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In the Philippines, we have supported the formation of coalitions of disadvantaged and under-represented groups to increase their participation in the policy arena. The third area that I want to summarize is election process. The initiation or conduct of an electoral process provides an opportunity for democratic forces to organize and compete for political power. That is why requests for assistance in support of an electoral process deserve special consideration in our program.
In Mongolia, we supported indigenous NGO's in conducting widespread civic and voter education in preparation for the landmark parliamentary elections of 1996. In Cambodia, the United States provided substantial support for U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993, both in terms of electoral administration and training for political parties.
As we have clearly stated in recent weeks, we will not resume this direct electoral assistance to the Cambodian Government unless and until it meets conditions laid out for ensuring a free and fair electoral process in the immediate future. In the Philippines, our assistance recently produced a consensus among the President, legislators, the electoral commission, and NGO's on an electoral modernization bill for the 1998 election. In Bangladesh, we assisted many aspects of the important parliamentary elections of June 1996.
The final area I will briefly touch on here, in summarizing my testimony is the area of government accountability and good governance, which is the fourth aspect of our democracy promotion assistance. In large measure, this area reflects the recognition of the fact that corruption, mismanagement, and government inefficiency are inextricably linked with poor performance in development. The challenge is to design good governance programs that are consistent with the broader goal of promoting democratic development.
In this regard, the U.S. programs focus on supporting executive branch ministries to plan, execute, and monitor budgets in a transparent manner, strengthening legislative policymaking, budget and oversight capabilities, and decentralizing policymaking by working directly with local government.
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In Mongolia, we are starting a new program to build on our earlier assistance to the Parliament. We will help the Parliament majority and minority caucuses professionalize their operations.
For the past decade, the United States has assisted the Government of the Philippines in formulating and implementing a revolutionary plan for decentralizing political authority. Today, Manila does not monopolize Philippine politics and government to the extent that it did a decade ago. Instead, provinces, cities, towns, and villages have significantly increased their power.
In Bangladesh, we are similarly helping to improve local governance. We are assisting local NGO's to better identify the needs of their communities and to better communicate these needs to the local government.
Let me close by covering briefly two other countries which are very different from the ones that I have been describing in these four categories of assistance. First, Burma. Mr. Chairman, as you well know, authoritarian governments that oppose any political reform obviously pose the greatest challenge for democracy promotion. Burma is certainly such a case. Our goal in Burma is to start a genuine dialog between SLORC and the democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi. We are pursuing this goal through a variety of means, including the ones I described earlier in my testimony including the withdrawal of our Ambassador, restrictions on visas, cessation of assistance to the government, and most recently, the banning of new U.S. investment.
With the entry of Burma into ASEAN, we have also urged ASEAN's other member governments to do all they can to convince the SLORC to begin a dialog with the opposition. Working on multiple tracks, we amplify our basic message to the Burmese Government, that its egregious violation of international norms is unacceptable. In addition, we are conducting a program in support of Burmese pro-democracy groups. Our assistance has helped the democratic opposition prepare for——
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Mr. BEREUTER. Pardon me for interrupting just a second, Mr. Secretary. Otherwise, if you have to go to Rules, we will give you a chance for questions. All right. Please continue.
Mr. SHATTUCK. I am almost completed here. Our assistance has helped the democratic opposition prepare for eventual talks with the government. Without international assistance, the voices of opposition leaders forced into exile would be weak and scattered, and pressure on the government to enter into genuine talks lessened. Our program has also allowed organizations to document the human rights abuses inside Burma. Finally, U.S. assistance has kept open the flow of accurate information to Burmese inside the country. Such outlets for information as RFA and the Democratic Voice of Burma help break the isolation of Burmese from the world and increase their understanding of the possibilities for a democratic future.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, just a few sentences on China. China, perhaps, poses the largest of all challenges that one might have, and not surprisingly, it is the largest of all countries of the world, but I will just say in concluding, and then refer you to the testimony at length and to further conversations that we hope to have with you. We are planning in consultation with the Congress to develop a modest democracy program in China that would seek to work in appropriate ways through U.S. NGO's to strengthen both civil society and the rule of law. Although China is highly controlled in many ways, we want to begin to take advantage of opportunities present in the area of NGO's in China and also trends that are to a certain extent developing toward law reform inside China.
We would like to explore with you and your colleagues our preliminary ideas for developing these programs in complete accord with congressional interests in this area as well. These programs would be intended to supplement but not replace our current and continuing diplomatic work in a wide variety of forums to press China for human rights progress in the ways that we would all like to see.
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Mr. Chairman, democracy in Asia is a reality in some countries and an opportunity in many others. The United States can play a significant role in promoting Asian democracy through diplomatic engagement and the use of a wide range of foreign policy tools, including, as this hearing is exploring, carefully tailored democracy assistance programs. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shattuck appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Secretary Shattuck, thank you very much for your testimony, and we would look forward, I am sure, as a subcommittee, to working with you on the initiative for China. We have had two Members who were able to join us shortly after you had begun, and, as a courtesy to them and to encourage our participation here, I am going to call on them for a brief opening statement or a submission of a statement for the record. Two Congressmen from California, Mr. Royce and Mr. Martinez. Mr. Royce.
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For months now we have seen numerous changes in Asia, the reversion of Hong Kong to China and the appointment of a new U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, just to name a few. I think this is a good time for this Subcommittee to examine our democratic policy promotions: have these promotions been working, what problems have arisen, what triumphs have we had? As Asia becomes the center of international trade and investment, our relationship with this region becomes all the more important. Democratic ideals must take hold in the region.
An end to human rights abuses and the elimination of barriers to democratic ideals will occur only if the United States maintains these important programs. Again, thank you for having this hearing today, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to hearing what each of the Members who will appear on each of these panels have to say.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Royce. Mr. Martinez.
Mr. MARTINEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just interested in learning as much as I can about how we are going to influence countries like China into democracies. There were some other countries you mentioned in your statement that have a way of life developed from generation to generation of living a certain kind of a culture. I can go back in the history of our country and the democracies we supported, which were not really democracies, and I am thinking of the Philippine Islands, I am thinking of China under Chiang Kai-shek, I am thinking of places where we occupied countries for a good number of years in Central America, and we did not leave democracies, we left dictatorships, hand-picked by ourselves.
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How do we reverse all of that, because that all is a part of where we are today and what direction we are going in, and how we are going to bring about a successful change. I, like most of my colleagues probably, believe that democracy is the best form of government, but understand that there are differences in democracies just like there are differences in Communist countries. They all have their own set of rules they play by, and I am not sure about holding out and expecting that all these countries are going to become democracies like ours when ours is not a perfect democracy and has not always been as good as it is now. It has been an evolution over the 210 years that we have been in existence.
We have seen a lot of changes, so I am just anxious to find out, you know, I think that is a tough assignment that anybody is charged with, to try to bring about the promotion of democracy in these countries, like I say, that are so stagnant in their ideas and have their own set paradigms. It is remarkable that we are even undertaking it, but I think it is a worthwhile undertaking.
So I am looking forward to any interchange and exchange we can have along that line. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. We will let you pose any specific question in that area shortly.
We are going to start the regular order now, and I will begin the process—5-minute rule. I would like to ask you, Mr. Secretary, three perhaps very fundamental questions, if you could respond briefly or give us an enlarged version of your views and the Department's views later.
Given the fact that we have finite resources to promote democracy, first, what is the best application of U.S. funding? Should we devote a larger share of it to those countries where change is most likely to occur, places like Indonesia or Mongolia, for example, or should we focus on countries where abuses are most severe, such as Afghanistan, North Korea?
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Second, what can the United States do to promote democracy in countries like Afghanistan or Burma, very insular countries where there is no democratic tradition? And third, what can we do to promote democracy in countries that have a one-party tradition like the PRC, Vietnam, or Laos? How do we go about party building or whatever approach would be appropriate?
Mr. SHATTUCK. I think, Mr. Chairman, the short answer to your question is humility has to be the guiding principle of all of our work in this area. We cannot ever pretend that we have all the answers, or in many cases that we even know all the questions. Second, deference to those forces and elements on the ground in each country who are themselves seeking to promote their democracy and their own opportunity and their own form of participation.
Those, I would say, are the two guiding philosophical points that we need to bear in mind as we answer your questions. First, as to how to pick countries, I think it is essential that there be a receptivity to the kind of assistance in the four areas that I was outlining, and that there be some element of civil society interested in receiving our assistance. Certainly in those countries that are moving along toward democratic change, there are going to be more potential recipients and more opportunities, and as time goes on, the process gets better, one hopes. But even when it is set back, as it has been recently so severely in Cambodia, I think we need to make sure that we stay on track because those who are struggling for democracy deserve our support. In Cambodia there were millions who with assistance went to the polls in 1993 and made it very clear that they want to continue that struggle. They deserve our support. By getting our support over the last 4 years, I think they are in a better position to continue that struggle as they seek to restore the democratic process in their country.
So even in a country like Cambodia where a major setback occurs, you need to continue these kinds of long-term programs. They are a good investment. They are an important taxpayer investment in the effort to provide stability in those areas.
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There are some countries—and I would certainly put North Korea in that category, and for a very different reason I would put Afghanistan in that category—where it is probably impossible to get the kind of foothold for assistance to those on the ground who want to promote democracy. In the case of North Korea this is because of the overwhelming strangle hold that the government has on the political process. In the case of Afghanistan, chaos and conflict among competing forces is so significant that it is difficult to get that kind of foothold.
But in between, there are opportunities across the board. That is why we are so actively interested in pursuing with you the kind of discussion that I have suggested on China. As you have indicated, China is, of course, a one-party State, but there are growing elements of political space developing in part as a result of the tremendous economic progress in the country. Therefore there is an opportunity to work there as well.
Countries that have no democratic tradition—and certainly in terms of our own view of democracy there are many in the Asian context with no democratic tradition—present serious challenges. But here again, I think the economic forces and the globalization of democracy that has occurred in this post-cold war period presents opportunities for us to pursue assistance programs on the ground, always guided by a humility and deference to those who are there.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I will turn now to the Ranking Democrat Member—sorry. Mr. Hastings was here at the beginning, so with the permission of the Ranking Member, which he suggested, we will proceed to you, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. HASTINGS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I would like to thank him for his deferring.
Mr. Shattuck, I was very pleased to hear you say that the lead line for us should be humility. Quite frankly, that is not how we, meaning the United States of America, are perceived in a lot of countries. We are perceived as arrogant, and to hear you and to know the Secretary and others are trying to dispel that perception is particularly important to me as a Member of the International Relations Committee.
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I am not so sure I heard you clearly in answering the Chairman's question about how to choose between countries that we seem to have limitations in light of the finite resources. I want to further amplify it, and I will try to take it up with you at another point in time if I can, in staying that course and trying to understand just what it is, when we have such dramatic, in-our-face failures as Cambodia, and such recalcitrant kinds of resistance that we meet in North Korea and Afghanistan, it is hard for me as a policymaker to want to spend resources in places, long-range esoteric kinds of goals, no matter our overall interest, and I come to the one question that I put, and it will be the only question that I will ask, Mr. Chairman, and that is, the development of democracy in Central Asia has been problematic at best, and given the success of central Asian strong men in creating submissive legislatures, what can the U.S. Government do to advance our democracy, and can funds be spent effectively in the central Asian republics?
I recognize that the trans-Caucuses and central Asia are not necessarily your desk or your full responsibility, but as I indicated, I am going to be a week out there, and I would be interested in your comments as I head in that direction.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, I think central Asia has potential for development, in the democratic spirit, just as with the east Asian areas. I think you mentioned Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has a very, very bad human rights record. It is emerging from not only its Soviet past, but also from no tradition of the protection of democracy and human rights. But as I said in answering the Chairman's question, we need to support elements of new civil society beginning to develop. They are not necessarily the government, and sometimes we support them by diplomatic means. We do not necessarily support them by giving them money.
Although I do not particularly mean to compare the two because they are very different countries, but Uzbekistan and Indonesia are both under strong authoritarian rule. There is a slow development of civil society. It is those people with whom we meet frequently. Whenever I go on a trip, my time is spent at least as much meeting with those outside of government as in government. Since I go to places primarily where the governments are causing many of the problems, I think that is an important signal, that we need to engage with those civil society elements.
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Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and I hope I get back from that area. I am sure I will get in and out.
Mr. SHATTUCK. You will be well received.
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Royce.
Mr. ROYCE. Yes. Mr. Secretary, the Philippines have been quite a success, and I would like to explore your thoughts as to maybe why, how, the success in terms of the transition to democratic principles occurred there in the post-Marcos era, and how firmly are democratic values established in the Philippines, and another question I would have is how would Filipino democracy be affected if President Ramos seeks a second term in office in violation of the Constitution? Your thoughts on what the reaction would be there, and last, President Ramos has been very active in promoting western democratic values, I mean, he has spoken on this issue. What success do you think he has achieved there in terms of the acceptance of some of these values?
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, I will give you a brief answer on the Philippines. Maybe we can elaborate some in writing as well, and I am sure you are going to want to hear from some of my colleagues who are experts in the Philippines. Since I am here to talk about the way in which the United States has approached its assistance programs, let me just cite two examples of the way in which I think U.S. assistance has coincided with the growing diversity of the democratic body politic in the Philippines.
First, as I said in my oral statement earlier, we have done a great deal through our assistance programs. They are modest to be sure—the total in this past fiscal year of $6.5 million—but that is important for a country that is developing toward democracy. We have assisted in the decentralization of power and assisting the training at local levels of local councils and local municipalities. And indeed there has been some devolution of power decentralization over this period of time. We have been working to make sure that that could occur.
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Second, USAID, I think, has facilitated the empowerment of various elements of the economy who have previously had very little voice in the halls of government. National coalitions of fisherman and farmers and the urban poor have been formed and now have a seat at the table of government policy formulation, and USAID programming has helped in that direction. So I think this is a good investment.
Ramos, I cannot speak to his intentions in the future. We were certainly disappointed when he joined with Mr. Mahateer in expressing the sort of Asian values perspective on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have made that clear. He has, I think, a background as a democratic leader, and we hope that that will continue.
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Royce. Mr. Berman.
Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Assistant Secretary Shattuck. I think you have been a very strong part of this Administration's efforts and a key force in keeping alive the notion that our foreign policy should be grounded in a commitment to certain principles including the promotion of democracy and the furtherance of the establishment of rule of law and human rights, so I just want to extend my appreciation to you for doing that. My guess is that within any Administration there are major tensions between forces that are looking at geo-political relationships with established governments, economic pressures, and huge numbers of outside forces sometimes that will be pushing certain policies, and so that this is not always an easy struggle, and I am grateful for what you do.
I do not know if you have had a chance to look at the testimony of Sidney Jones at all. She raises some interesting issues involving democracy. Let me take one part of what you said. This whole question of, I forget exactly how you formulated, economic progress leading to the establishment of democratic institutions and pluralism, and respect and regard for rule of law and human rights. I would like that to be true. You yourself said it is not axiomatic that it happens, and I would like you to, I mean, what accounts for a Singapore, with a high standard of living, tremendous economics. Rule of law in the sense that there is a lot of law——
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Mr. SHATTUCK. And a lot of rule.
Mr. BERMAN. And a lot of rule. Versus an India where, I mean, I see in this testimony by Sidney Jones some criticism, but fundamentally when you get away from some of the religious and ethnic conflict in India, both at the national level and at State levels, where bitter political opponents have transitioned from power to being oppositioned back into power through free and fair elections in a country where while it is doing better, is probably far closer to China and maybe below China in terms of per capita income these days, and certainly way behind Singapore, and where at least you see democratic institutions more firmly established, because part of the argument by those who are pushing for greater trade and greater openness and more economic contacts, they hold out that carrot of, and the benefits in terms of foreign policy will be more political stability, more political democracy, more respect for individual and minority rights. That is my 5-minute question.
Mr. SHATTUCK. The Singapore question, no, this is a very fundamental issue, and that is, and I stated it as such in my opening remarks. This Administration believes, and I think many experts believe, that economic development can facilitate the growth of entities, such as a growing middle class, that will assist in the development of democracy, including a civil society. There is no certainty to that process by any means, and Singapore in many ways demonstrates that.
I would just say without being an expert on Singapore from either a historical or even a current political standpoint, but nonetheless, it is very easy to observe when you go to Singapore, as I have been a number of times, that it is a very unique place. Singapore is a city. Singapore is basically an island city which has enormous economic growth and a very strong authoritarian centralized political regime. It seems to suit Singapore in some ways, although there are certainly, I am sure, plenty of elements in Singapore who are not happy with it.
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To compare Singapore and India, you were not doing that, but I mean, India is just such a fundamentally different place with such diversity and such range and such size, and such opportunity for debate and development of debate. I do not think the authoritarianism of Singapore speaks in any way to the democratic potential for India, Indonesia, or any of the other countries with large, diverse populations.
What we have in our democracy programs and in our overall emphasis on democracy building and human rights in our foreign policy is that missing element that is not there automatically when economic development brings about the potential for democratic development. There has to be more. There has to be on-the-ground opportunities for those who would like to bring about more democratic development. There needs to be international support for that process. In some cases, there needs to be pressure, which is one of the reasons why we have a firm position on human rights promotion in countries, and above all, there need to be connections between those who are trying to work to promote democracy and their friends around the world.
That is what our democracy assistance programs are all about. Now, I do not mean to go back on my statement that we have to start with humility. We do. We always have to have humility in this area, and never take the position that we can jumpstart the democratic process, either in Singapore or anywhere else. But our programs can make a difference, as I think I answered in my answer to Mr. Royce on the Philippines.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I can just comment for 1 second, because I feel more badly than most times when I have to leave a hearing early, because this is a very important subject, there are witnesses coming up, there are a number of questions I would like to ask them. But there is a fundamental challenge to our democracy-building programs. I mean, we are playing around at the edges of things. We have so many different kinds of activities going on in Cambodia. We have so many, a variety of programs and fundamentally the people in power who want to hold on to power and squash their opponents tend to do so and our democracy-building programs do not get at that fact, and I mean, I am not going to be able to be here to hear it, but I would be interested in knowing the leaders of our democracy programs that I have been fighting for and like so much, how do you answer that criticism that basically they are all nice and good and self-contained, and they probably have some use, but they are really playing at the edges, they are not getting at the fundamental questions of the power arrangements in these countries, and taking people who want to keep in power and sustain themselves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. BEREUTER. You are welcome, Mr. Berman. The second panel will think about that question and try to be responsive to it. Mr. Martinez.
Mr. MARTINEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can see that I am not the only one in this kind of a quandary that for all the things we do, that we say we do, to promote democracy throughout the world, we always seem to be playing at the edge of it, and really not, and we cannot, and I do not know how we get personally involved because a democracy is a country selecting its own leaders, and sometimes, I think many times we envision that kind of a democracy for everyone else who is just starting out.
We have evolved over 200 years, and some of these countries are starting out, and not knowing, maybe they did not have the same kind of founding fathers we had that put together a Constitution that I thought was a work of geniuses, but the fact is that they are trying to put together their own constitutions for the country, and often they do not have the education or background to really put that together in such a way that it would be a democracy just like ours, and then we have a tendency, and I agree with, and I read real quickly the first page of the testimony that Howard was referring to of Sidney Jones, and I agree with her. We have a tendency to label democracy, and they are not really democracies, and I pointed out one in my previous statement, the Philippine Islands. Did we really think Marcos was a democracy? He was a military dictatorship, is what he was.
Did we really think Chiang Kai-shek was a democracy? I do not think so. I spent 2 1/2 years right after World War II right there in China while Chiang Kai-shek was in power, and he was the reason the Communists came to power, and they were not a democracy. There was nobody choosing who would be the leader of that country. It was self-chosen, because he led a revolution. That is the tantamount of it.
It leaves me to wonder, try to understand when we are doing all these things because in the back of my mind, it seems the only way you can really promote democracy is by example and being successful in that democracy and you say the economics itself does not promote democracy but is a way of achieving the desire among people to benefit themselves and to promote themselves, to have an influence on their government. In a lot of countries, that is true, what happens.
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But in that regard, you know, we look at a country like China, and that is what my real question is going to be about. What percentage of the billion-plus people in China are actually Communists?
Mr. SHATTUCK. I do not know the answer to that question. Certainly the Communist party controls the Government of China.
Mr. MARTINEZ. They control, but that is the amazing thing. Of the billion-plus people, only about 3 to 4 percent are actually Communists. Three to 4 percent of the people are controlling that whole country, and we cannot influence that democracy there that much. You saw what happened in Tiananmen Square when people who had been educated in this country and had come here and lived under a democratic system for a while, who went back and all they were looking for was freedom of expression, and they could not even get that.
How many political parties are there in China now, in PRC?
Mr. SHATTUCK. There is only one authorized political party in China, the Communist party.
Mr. MARTINEZ. There is only one that is running the country, but there are quite a few political parties there, each one of them having some influence, some little influence, but not really enough influence to change the control in that country. Besides the population control which a lot of my pro-life people get offended at, and the repression of political views, what are the other grievous human rights violations that we need to be alarmed about?
Mr. SHATTUCK. In China?
Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, we have laid this out in great detail in our annual human rights report, and I would be happy to submit that for the record, but there are many aspects of human rights abuse in China.
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[The material appears in the appendix.]
There is persecution of freedom of religion in many areas. There is, in Tibet, major repression of cultural and religious activity. There is a system of administrative tension and a large prison system that is the source of a huge amount of human right abuse, and of course there is generally a silencing of those who have taken political points of view and publicly expressed them in opposition to the government.
Mr. MARTINEZ. We saw that in Taiwan during their so-called martial law period of time which was an extended period of time. In fact, I was in Taiwan when the publisher of a magazine who printed pictures of the Olympics and the Chinese athletes from China who won gold medals, the magazine was confiscated and burned, and the publishers put in jail. Now, that was supposed to be a democracy.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, if I may correct the record on Taiwan, certainly it is not our position that Taiwan was a democracy under Chiang Kai-shek, nor was it our position that the Philippines was a democracy under Marco. What I have been testifying here today, and I think the record bears this out, is that there has been significant progress in democratic development. I would not call many of these countries full-scale democracies or democracies in the sense that we might mean it in our own country, but democratic development has occurred in the Philippines, in Taiwan, and in many other countries in Asia. I might also say in order to make the record very clear, and my testimony I think lays this out, that in China there are many conflicting elements. There are all the human rights abuses that I laid out, but there are also a lot of people, and you mentioned that it is a country of 1.2 billion, so you can imagine what a lot of people means, who are seeking as much as they can within whatever political space they can find to develop organizations and operate as much as possible within some zone of growing autonomy.
Now, there is not as much as there should be, and it is certainly not anything approaching a democracy, but there is movement in that direction, and it coincides, as it turns out, with much of the economic growth that has occurred in the country. There are also developments along law reform lines in China, which I think show some degree of positive response to the trends that are occurring now.
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Mr. MARTINEZ. If the Chairman would just bear with me just a little bit longer?
Mr. CHAIRMAN. Briefly.
Mr. MARTINEZ. The whole point that I am getting at is that we ought to be very careful when we label countries democracies, as Sidney Jones has laid out in her testimony. I have always had a problem with countries that wave a flag yelling democracy in order to gain the support of the United States, when they are in fact not democracies. That happens a lot in Central America.
In mainland China right now there are some things that are happening, changing. More recently they have started to franchise businesses. In the past, one would not think in China, in a Communist country, there would be anything like that capitalistic idea of franchising. I am wondering if we cannot build on those positive things, where people are now developing, rather than being too condemning of them in a total way. I find you get a lot more from honey than you do from vinegar. That is why I do agree with your statement about humility, our approach being one of humbleness rather than arrogance, as Alcee Hastings has pointed out, that we have had too often in the past. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Mr. Manzullo.
Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry that I missed your testimony this afternoon, but I read it fully, and I missed your testimony before the International Trade Subcommittee the other day. I know it is repetitious, but we have additional people that were not at the earlier hearing a couple of days ago, and Mr. Secretary, I wonder if you could comment on your position, the proposed Freedom from Religious Persecution Act.
Mr. SHATTUCK. I would be glad to, Mr. Manzullo, and I think it relates directly to the subject that we are talking about here today. The legislation that is under consideration in another subcommittee of this Full Committee would call for the imposition of automatic sanctions on any country which is found to engage in religious discrimination, and the way those findings would be made is through a single office which is not connected to any other element of our foreign policy work. If there was a finding by that office, then automatically the sanctions would be imposed.
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Frankly, I think this is exactly what flies in the face of our effort to engage with countries that are involved in religious persecution. Religious persecution is something that we have made a major focus of our human rights work, including in some cases curtailing various benefits that a country might receive. There cannot be a kind of ''one size fits all'' approach to this subject. If there is, if there were to be through the enactment of this legislation, I think much of the kind of work we are talking about here in this Subcommittee would be to naught.
There would be very few countries against whom sanctions would be automatically imposed who would then want to participate in the kind of efforts to promote democracy and human rights in those countries. We want to find a mechanism that will work, and we want to work with the Congress to amend this legislation so that some appropriate kind of vehicle can be found, but the vehicle that is now before you I think is severely flawed.
Mr. MANZULLO. I noticed in your comments on China, your statement, that you mentioned that in the late 1970's China had two law schools and 3,000 lawyers. Today in China there are over 100,000 lawyers and 100 law schools. It presumes that the more lawyers you have——
Mr. SHATTUCK. I knew that was where you were headed. I thought that myself.
Mr. MANZULLO. You have to have something to do.
Mr. SHATTUCK. That is right. An employment program.
Mr. HASTINGS. Well, it worked here.
Mr. SHATTUCK. That is right. Humility.
Mr. MANZULLO. But they do have to have something to do in China. The fact that there are that many lawyers means that they are working with some type of a legal structure which before did not exist. I had the opportunity to meet with the granddaughter of Sun Yat Sen, and the Manchu dynasty, I mean, we are only 70 or 80 years removed from feudalism that ruled China, and yet we welcome the changes that are taking place in China, yet we know, we are still very cognizant of the fact that persecution does take place.
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I know the Administration's opposition to the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act. What is in the pan? What else can be done besides that particular piece of legislation to try to redress religious or political persecution other than economically engaging, and I agree with your premise that the more we engage economically, the more open a society is, such as in Shanghai, the less reports there are of human rights violations.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, we can certainly do other things, and in fact the Congress may want to consider that when the legislation moves. One thing we can do is to strengthen the whole reporting process on not only religious persecution but on human rights abuse. One of the dangers of this bill is that it creates a kind of hierarchy of human rights so that religious persecution is condemned, but if you happen to be in prison as Wei Zingsheng for reasons having to do with your political views, you are not going to be treated in the same way as this bill would treat those who are put in because they are persecuted for religious reasons.
We can significantly increase our reporting. We can increase the diplomatic work that we do on behalf of human rights, and certainly we can look at ways of, where appropriate, imposing sanctions in situations as we did in Burma, for example. I mean, there are situations, as I say in my testimony, where sanctions may well make sense, but not automatic and disconnected from any other element of our foreign policy, so that if we are pursuing a Middle East peace process or if we are trying to bring about reconciliation of religious groups in Indonesia, or if we are doing any number of diplomatic efforts to bring about religious reconciliation elsewhere, we do not all of a sudden have those cut off by an automatic set of sanctions, but there are things we can do. There is no question about it.
Mr. MANZULLO. I would be interested if you would like to send us additional testimony, in specific the things that can be done in lieu of that particular, I know that Chairman Bereuter is very much interested in that.
Mr. SHATTUCK. I thank you for your interest, and we will work with you.
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Mr. BEREUTER. And especially in lieu of our upcoming markup. I appreciate the effort that you have made with your staff to work with Members of the Committee. The gentleman from California, Mr. Capps, is recognized.
Mr. CAPPS. Thank you very much. I am sorry that I was not here to hear the testimony, and I have leafed through your paper but have not really mastered it. But this is the second week in a row where I have been on a committee before which you have testified, and I learn from you each time. I like very much the direction of your remarks.
I always have to preface this and say that I taught school for a long time at the University of California, and I think I tend to ask questions that appear to be abstract, but I want to be very, very specific about this. I mean, teachers can be specific, too, and not just abstract, but you have already talked, I believe, about Asian leaders who have frequently said that Asian interpretations of democracy will not be completely coordinate with Western views of democracy, and—Mr. Chairman, have I spoken too long here? OK. That was just the preface, but I think that that may be true in cultural terms, and I notice that the move you made in the paper at about that point was to talk about civil society.
Now, civil society would seem to be a common term for societies that are democratic now, or are moving toward democracy. The question would be, do we as Americans, as people who believe wholeheartedly in democracy, believe that all countries are inevitably moving toward democracy, or do the cultural differences play such a role that we would be satisfied with the achievement of civil society around the world? Maybe that is an impossible thing to answer in a kind of global sense, but I think it makes an awful lot of difference in our strategy.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Let me give you a quick answer, because I know time is short here. One, democracy is not universal in its form. Human rights are. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, over which Secretary Albright has squirmished with a number of world leaders, sets out certain basic principles of human rights and opportunities which need to be pursued on a global basis, and in fact have been endorsed on a global basis.
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Democracy comes in so many different forms, in a sense the label gets in the way. The label is really different from one place to the next, and it is our intention in promoting opportunities for people on their own terms to participate in their own societies, as you say, to create larger and larger space for civil society to operate. What form the democracy takes is not necessarily of consequence except that human rights have to be respected.
Let me make one final point which my friends in the human rights community would certainly agree with. Democracies do not necessarily respect human rights, and we have a lot of work to do, including in our own democracy, to engage on the subject of human rights, which are universal.
Mr. CAPPS. Mr. Chairman, can I have a quick followup?
Mr. BEREUTER. You still have time.
Mr. CAPPS. OK. I had the great honor this morning of meeting with Tong Yi, who is a former assistant to China's leading dissident Wei Zingsheng, and we had an excellent conversation about some of these very matters. I think one of the upshots of that meeting was that she was urging us to support dissidents in China. I wanted to ask you, as a human rights expert in the State Department, how does one work that out as national policy, or is that good policy? I would just love to have a reaction to that because that is a little bit different from promoting civil society, that is advocating the activities of dissidents in these countries around the world.
Mr. SHATTUCK. Well, I met with Tong Yi yesterday. And as you may know, I also met with her as well as Wei Zingsheng in Beijing in 1994, so I have some strong views on this. Those who are imprisoned for their political views, not for any criminal conduct, but because they have spoken or sometimes even thought thoughts that are contrary to the regime in power, have been the victims of human rights abuse as defined under the Universal Declaration. They deserve the support not only of the United States, but of the whole world. I think in varying measures, they get it.
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How to induce their release from prison in the country that is holding them is one of the most bedeviling issues in the whole human rights field, particularly when a government in charge is not necessarily going to listen to what the international community says. But it is important that the international community speak and be clear that when a person like Wei Zingsheng is imprisoned for exercising his freedom of speech that is a violation of fundamental human rights. That is why his case has been raised at the highest levels of our government in discussions with the Chinese Government. It will continue to be raised until he is released.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Capps. Thank you, Secretary Shattuck. If the Members who have further questions will consult with our staff, we will facilitate a presentation of those questions to the Secretary and to the State Department. Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for your testimony here today. We very much appreciate it. It is helpful to us. It sets the stage for the next panel. I encourage Members to come back if at all possible. We will recess and reconvene promptly at 3:45. The hearing is recessed.
[Recess.]
Mr. BEREUTER. The Subcommittee will resume its hearing. I am sorry we had to delay our witnesses and the audience. It is getting very hard to conduct any serious business around here when you have colleagues that adjourn or attempt to adjourn about every 30 minutes. If Mr. Miller's party and my party would get together, we would have campaign finance reform. Mr. Miller calling adjournment votes all the time is not going to help the matter any.
Having gotten that off my chest, I feel more like listening to our witnesses that are here to testify. I have introduced the three of you previously. I am very pleased to have you spend some time with us. I hope that my colleagues will be back shortly.
First in the order of listing, we will hear from Mr. Richard Richter, president of RFA.
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Mr. RICHTER. Thank you, Mr. Bereuter.
Mr. BEREUTER. Your entire statements, all of you, will be made a part of the record. You may proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD RICHTER, PRESIDENT, RADIO FREE ASIA
Mr. RICHTER. Thank you very much. I am pleased to be here because I am very eager to tell you about RFA, what we have done and what we plan to do. RFA, is you know, new. The first anniversary of our initial broadcast will be celebrated in 12 days on September 29th. That day we will also begin broadcasting to our seventh different country, Khmer to Cambodia. Our first year has been tumultuous, as no doubt some of you know. We have been jammed in China, Vietnam, North Korea. We have been denounced by governments of the six places to which we broadcast, basically condemned for existing, but not once have any of these governments found fault with a particular story, an individual story that we have done. We have won support from this Congress, which has decided that what we do is important and that our broadcasts should expand.
The President, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the State Department, have all stood up and said RFA is important for America's foreign policy objectives in Asia, and they call for support of our efforts to reach the oppressed peoples of Asia with objective news, information, commentary, and with voices expressing a variety of opinions. However, no praise, no amount of money, can match the comments of the people to whom we broadcast. Like the radio broadcaster in China's Shanxi Province who wrote, ''The thing that moves me most is that every one of you, RFA's broadcasters, not only has outstanding talent, but also an exuberant enthusiasm for work. I really cannot understand where you get so much energy.''
She went on to say that she is bored, and so are all of her coworkers who only care about making money. And she said that ''people are always criticizing us for not telling the truth, so we nonchalantly remind them if we spend our days telling the truth, who is going to pay us?''
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Out of the many letters we receive from China, this one letter is eloquent testimony to the reality that there is no freedom of expression in China. And that is why it was so important for RFA to step into the breach as a surrogate for the media that do not inform the people. I realize that you may be most interested in what RFA can do to enhance service to China as proposed by Speaker Gingrich, but I ask you to listen for a moment to a short digression about Burma.
Two weeks ago, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's democracy movement, was interviewed on videotape, and the tape was smuggled out to Bangkok. In the interview, she lamented the difficulties in the struggle for democracy and the dismal economic situation in Burma. However, she said it is not as bad as it might have been because of RFA, which is widely listened to throughout Burma. She praised RFA because we broadcast more news about Burma itself than any other international broadcaster. We do that because that is our mandate. In all fairness, I should also point out that she said that VOA, the BBC and the Voice of Burma were helpful, too.
Both of these anecdotes cut to the core of the role RFA can play in democracy building—and to the essence of Congress' intent in establishing us. We can inform a citizenry that otherwise is uninformed, concentrating totally on internal news and information about each country and its people, and some collateral reporting about the region. Information is an essential building block of a democratic society, and that is what we are providing.
As you probably know, RFA's proposed China enhancement calls for the expansion of Mandarin broadcasts from 5 to 12 hours a day, Tibetan from 2 to 6 hours, the creation of a Cantonese service for 4 hours a day, and one other language not yet definitely determined, but probably Wu, which is spoken in and around Shanghai, for 2 hours. This totals 24 hours a day.
All of which is not possible without substantial strengthening of transmission capability. Our Mandarin broadcasts are now jammed by China, and since we transmit from five different locations simultaneously, fortunately not all of the signals are jammed all the time. But with additional more powerful transmitters, there is a far greater likelihood of overpowering the jamming and reaching more listeners.
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There are two elements to the transmitter enhancement. One is the purchase and expansion of a station on Saipan, and the other is expansion and acceleration of the Tinian station now under construction. Not only will these sites provide good, strong signals, but they will also be secure politically on American territory not subject to political pressure and occasional technical inadequacies of sites currently being leased in foreign countries. Twenty four hours to China is impossible without both Saipan and Tinian.
Earlier I alluded to RFA's first tumultuous year, and the many difficulties that we encountered were the result of distorted notions about what we would do or were already doing. Many people, the governments of our target countries and some observers in this country, assumed RFA was going to be a wildly irresponsible purveyor of half truths and propaganda. The Vietnamese Government attacked us long before we started broadcasting there for transmitting pornography. At that time we had not broadcast anything at all to Vietnam, and certainly not pornography or propaganda.
Fortunately, congressional legislation enabling the creation of RFA stated very specifically that it was not to broadcast propaganda. We were to be a legitimate, objective news organization, and that is what we have been since day one. I was encouraged enormously a month or so before our first broadcast when Congressman Porter said to me that the credibility of our broadcast was essential. Without it we would be nothing. What that means is objective presentation of information in the tradition of the best of American journalism, reports that our listeners can trust and hold sacred as examples of what their own media should be. That is RFA's great strength and the essence of nurturing the democratic process.
Let me tell you a little bit about the programming to China that deals most directly with the democratic process. First, some regular features. The Pacific Forum, a program looking specifically at different elements of a democratic society. The Press Forum, all about aspects of press freedom and freedom of expression. The Labor Corner, probably our most popular broadcast. Labor specialist Han Dongfang deals with the rights of workers. He reports from Hong Kong.
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Different Voices, life stories of dissidents as told to an RFA interviewer, is also very popular. The commentaries of Liu Binyan, now living in Princeton, but formerly China's best known newspaperman. He has been devoting time to learning from others, messages that might be adopted in China, mostly dealing with the rule of law and the mandate of the people.
Between the lines, reading the Chinese press to determine what is not being said and what might be inferred from that. China's democratic process, a series on the democracy movement since the wall poster campaign of 1979.
If RFA expands to 24 hours a day to China, all of these programs will continue. Some will expand, many new ones will be added. Regular programs on religion, the environment, the law, business and finance and women's issues, radio dramas are planned and the serialization of books will be expanded to include fiction as well as the non-fiction now broadcast. All of these books, by the way, are books that are very difficult, perhaps impossible, to get inside of China.
RFA will devote more time to the Chinese diaspora, producing regular programming about the people who emigrated to other countries around the world. We are also considering regular broadcasts, maybe each 15 minutes a week, in minority dialogs. This would be in addition to Cantonese and Wu. RFA's Tibetan service already has weekly broadcasts in two minority dialects, Amdo and Kham.
Now, if you will permit me one additional anecdote about another language service, Vietnamese. This summer RFA learned about peasant revolts in many villages in Thai Binh Province, which is 50 miles south of Hanoi. It is a stronghold of Communist militants. Our reports were the first by any international broadcaster, and it was only after our first full story about the extent of the revolts that the Vietnamese Government admitted that anything had happened, a revolt that we now know has spread to some 125 villages. That is the kind of reporting we are bringing to the people of Vietnam and to the people of the rest of Asia, to China, Tibet, Burma, North Korea, Laos, and soon to Cambodia.
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One final message, and I speak for the entire staff of RFA when I say that we truly love what we are doing and would like to thank you and all of your colleagues for making it possible for us to do it.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Richter appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Richter, thank you very much for your testimony. We will come back for questions. Dr. William Fuller is the president of The Asia Foundation. Welcome, Dr. Fuller.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM FULLER, PRESIDENT, ASIA FOUNDATION
Dr. FULLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have submitted my written testimony for the record. It contains a good deal of detailed information about Asia and The Asia Foundation's programs. What I would like to do here is to take my 8 to 10 minutes and do something a little different. I would like to summarize what I see as some of the general challenges that lie ahead for democracy in Asia, and then conclude with a few lessons the Foundation has learned from its efforts to support democratic reform.
There is clearly a lot to be said about specific countries such as China, Cambodia, and Mongolia, as well as a number of issues, such as aspirations and values, and perhaps we could return to them during the discussion period. But I'll start with a few general comments.
There has been a good deal of progress in movements to democracy in the last 25 years, in a region that is remarkably diverse, and most of these complex processes started well before the collapse of the Berlin wall. And our own Foundation has been involved right from the beginning in most countries.
Since the mid–1980's, for example, a wave of countries in Asia have moved toward democracy. The Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Bangladesh, and Mongolia all shifted from authoritarian regimes to at least procedural democracies. These are not full democracies, these are procedural democracies that have some of the institutional elements of democracy, given the current state of their transparency, representation, and accountability. Even in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, where formal political institutions have remained relatively unchanged and where civil liberties are restricted, some laws have been improved, economies have been steadily liberalized, and new non-state organizations have emerged.
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Yet at the same time, there have been setbacks, including Cambodia today, and no movement in Burma and North Korea. But the overall picture in the region, at least in historical terms, is one of progress, particularly during the past decade.
Having said that, there are difficult challenges ahead. I will mention four.
First, until recently, most of the democracies that have been developing in the last decade have not been seriously tested economically. The recent declines in economic growth and the currency crisis in Southeast Asia may provide this test, and for several countries at once.
We have already seen in Mongolia that economics affects politics. The new government's policy of rapid economic liberalization, which led to sharp price increases, contributed to the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party's success in some parts of the country.
It is important to note that in some countries growth rates of 4 to 5 percent are needed simply to absorb new entrants to the labor market, much less increase employment and incomes.
In brief, serious economic downturn could lead to dissatisfaction and unrest and if history is any guide could lead to a slowdown in political reform, and even in extreme cases to a revived role for the military in government. The second challenge, polls show a growing public cynicism about politics in the new democracies. You expect it in authoritarian states.
Public perception and cynicism reflect a range of concerns. Money politics, corruption, the sense that elected governments support only the interests of a few, unfair big business-government connections and so on. Virtually all of Asia's democracies have problems with corruption, transparency, and accountability, and it is affecting perceptions of democratic governments.
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The good news is that public cynicism in democracies actually may encourage the search for solutions to some of these problems. High-level government corruption of course has existed for years in Asia. What's new is that it is now openly discussed, publicly criticized, and in some cases legal action has been taken. The price may be a period of public disillusionment with democratic government, but in the end, the reward could be genuinely cleaner, more accountable democracies. We'll see.
Third, increased political openness and economic growth have led to the formation of many new organizations, institutions, and competing interest groups. The problem is that the formal institutions of new democratic government—for example, the legal system and parliaments, which are supposed to mediate, adjudicate and find common ground among many interests—are still very weak. Look at the performance of the over-burdened legal systems and their reputations across the region.
The challenge is not only to accelerate the development and independence of these institutions, but also at the same time to support the development of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that will provide a greater number of citizens with access to a form of justice while the formal systems of democratic government develop. And finally, there is in my view an immediate challenge to develop local government.
As I've said, economic growth and increased political freedoms have made societies in Asia more varied, complex, and very difficult to govern centrally. The next democratic challenge will be to move the process of democratic governance, including regulatory authority, down to lower levels of the State, and to communities and, for that matter, when appropriate, to private organizations, for example, professional organizations. This will help to further break down central control and encourage more citizen participation. It's at that level that most citizens interact with government.
The Asia Foundation has been involved in many countries for many, many years, supporting the rule of law, democratic institutions, and non-governmental organizations, including human rights, consumer, and women-in-politics groups. Our purpose is to help develop local institutions and leadership and help get policies right. We operate on-the-ground through small country offices, and make sequenced grants to institutions for their development. These grants help fund training, technical assistance, and information and materials.
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In brief, our job is to support reform and build capacity for it internally. Drawing on many years of experience with democracy development in Asia, there are a few lessons that we would point to: A first lesson is the importance of building good institutions and staying engaged until they are sustainable. It is hard, complex and long-term work, though relatively low cost.
Our staff in the field works with organizations for a substantial time and provides advice and support that steadily and incrementally strengthens local capacity. The byproduct of long-term engagement is that it builds trust and confidence, enables a better understanding of political climates, and a practical sense of what works and what does not work, and it can pay off.
To illustrate, the Foundation supported the development of parliaments in Korea and Taiwan for two decades—building staff capacity, legislative information services and committee structures—and by and large they function pretty well today.
Second, the Asia Foundation, when it can, uses expertise from other parts of Asia to support democracy projects. This is a form of multi-lateralism, and it is very effective. It demonstrates that law, rights, and democracy are not just U.S. concerns. And since Asian specialists often have recently dealt more with democracy building in their own countries, they carry considerable credibility.
For example, to develop public opinion polling in Indonesia and Bangladesh, we used a Philippine organization to provide technical assistance.
Third, it is important to have staying power, and to be perceived as having staying power. The United States supported and protected Japan, Korea, and Taiwan for decades, giving them time and resources to develop economically and politically and eventually build their democratic institutions. We must view our support for democratization just as we view our security commitments—it must be sustained and dependable.
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We should not pull out at the first sign of difficulty. For example, the Foundation plans to stay engaged, at least for now, in Cambodia. Despite real difficulties and an uncertain future, there is an active non-governmental organization community which we have helped to build over the last 5 years. It will be very important in the leadup to the 1998 elections, both in preparing citizens and keeping the international community informed of whether benchmarks for a free and fair election are being reached, including whether citizens truly feel free to vote their minds.
Finally, a lesson for us has been that there are serious reformers even within authoritarian governments, not just in the non-governmental community, and it is possible to support their reform efforts and see progress. For example, administrative laws in China have been passed that now enable citizens to press cases against government agencies; village elections are underway in most of China's villages. We provided support for these efforts.
They are not perfect, but they represent a beginning. The message is that reform can be spurred on by supporting carefully selected reformers within government. Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to provide specific examples of how Foundation programs help encourage and build democracy in specific countries during the discussion period. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fuller appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Fuller. Next we will hear from Ms. Louisa Coan, the National Endowment for Democracy. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF LOUISA COAN, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY
Ms. COAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to be here to describe some of our programs in the Asia Pacific region, and to share some of the insights we have gained by leading, working with the leading democrats in the region.
My written testimony sounds a number of themes that have become common ideas we hear from democrats we have worked with around the world. I also met with Tong Yi this morning, and the themes that she sounded really echoed these so clearly that I just wanted to list a few of them here in her own words as they echoed the things we have learned from so many other people around the world.
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She emphasized the importance of international support for democrats around the world, particularly American support. People do look to America to support their cause for human rights and democracy. The power of ideas, that we stand by our ideas and principles is extremely important for people who often have so little else as their weapons. And finally she did say the United States should provide direct assistance to human rights activists and dissidents in China, as was mentioned earlier by another Member of the Subcommittee.
It is because the Endowment does share the hopes and aspirations of people like Tong Yi and our grantees elsewhere in the world that we have been able to build relations of trust and solidarity with pro-democracy groups whom we are able to support with direct grants, and I will just briefly talk about our three largest programs in Asia, each illustrative of different kinds of approaches that need to be taken in different situations.
In China, we are able to take what we call an integrative grant-making approach. It incorporates themes that have already been raised today in this hearing. We are able to support the pro-democracy networks, the dissidents, the human rights activists, and at the same time take advantage of the opportunities to help the reformers who can take initial steps to move along within the system to make the incremental changes that will eventually create the conditions and build up building blocks for genuine democratic reform in the future.
The work of the International Republican Institute (IRI), has been mentioned. They have been able to work over several years with the village committee elections, the entire infrastructure from the national to the provincial to the local levels that has been newly set up in the last 10 years, and where they are still looking for guidance and help, IRI is able to come in and give, provide international standards, do monitoring and observation missions, and provide checklists which are very useful to the local administration of elections, emphasizing the importance of the basics such as secret ballots, open vote tabulation, and the immediate transfer of power within a village.
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IRI has also been able to work with the National People's Congress, capacity building, where staff have been given access, again, to international norms in areas both of substantive law and also of legislative drafting practice. Also, in the area of legal infrastructure, another area that has been mentioned by others, IRI has been working to support training of judges, to support the work of reformist officials within the judicial system who need to be exposed to international standards in the work that they do in recruiting and professionalizing lawyers, judges, and increasing public awareness of the law.
In particular, IRI has been working lately with a new program to implement a recently passed law to establish a legal aid system. Again starting from the ground up, IRI has been able to work with officials in charge of implementing a new law and putting substance to the words on paper by providing international norms.
Other programs that we are able to promote inside China include work carried out by NED's Center for International Private Enterprise, which has worked for a number of years with economic reform programs. We have supported a number of symposia on public affairs related to economic reform, but also touching on other areas of legal and even political reform, a university training program for business management teachers and entrepreneurs in business ethics and the role of business in civil society, and also international conferences that again bring Chinese economists, often who have been trained in the United States, who are familiar with international norms, and bring them into contact with reformers and academics and intellectuals inside China who are working on issues such as the role of the private sector in China and privatization of State-owned enterprises, the very issue that has been so prominently covered at the current 15th Party Congress.
Then on the other side, where the dissidents, the human rights activists who are shut out of the system, but nonetheless stand for very important values and need to be able to circulate information to have their voices heard, we have been able to fund their work directly. Some of the most prominent of these groups are the group Human Rights in China, The China Strategic Institute run by Wang Juntao, one of the Black Hands of Beijing, the Laogai Research Foundation run by Harry Wu, the labor research work done by Han Dongfang, the star of RFA's labor forum program, the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, the work of the International Campaign for Tibet to sustain a dialog between Tibetans and Chinese democrats.
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There are a number of other information and news-related programs that we are also able to support with direct grants. We currently have about 20 grants altogether focussing on China, Tibet, and Hong Kong totaling approximately $2.6 million. Needless to say, we think more could be done in these areas, and wanted to lay out for you that we are able to work both to support the dissidents and to work inside the country in the interests of reform where the opportunities present themselves.
I also wanted to touch on Cambodia, because it is another country where careful, flexible, sensitive decisionmaking has to be done to tailor any kind of democracy promotion program to changing circumstances. We have been funding programs for Cambodian democrats since the late 1980's, starting with the first translation of certain human rights documents into Cambodia, and to Khmer, including training programs in the refugee camps at the border, and then after 1993 when the civil society groups began to spring up, we worked in coordination with other U.S. institutions to fund the work of civil society groups and to help parties and other institutions involved with the electoral system, particularly IRI, the Republican Institute has been working with the democratic parties and the National Democratic Institute has been working with the domestic election monitoring NGO's.
In response to the July events, both IRI and NDI were able to very quickly revise their programs and to look at what was possible in the new circumstances. Both institutes have now devoted substantial resources to providing financial and technical assistance to those who were forced to flee the country, and are now attempting to mount a fight for the restoration of democracy in Cambodia, unfortunately from exile at the moment. Both IRI and NDI plan to continue to stand by these democrats whether their needs are in exile during the period when negotiated settlement is contemplated, and hopefully when they return, if elections are deemed to be, are set up and are deemed to be legitimate.
And finally, Burma is an example of a country where everyone says it is very difficult to know how to promote democracy, how to support the democrats there. NED has been able through its direct grants program to support the dissidents, to support the democracy movement of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, particularly through assistance to the groups along the borders in Thailand and in India, including twice daily radio programming, the Democratic Voice of Burma, just mentioned, newsletters, underground newspaper, underground labor organizing, particular programs to foster inter-ethnic cooperation and unity among the opposition forces in support of Aung San Suu Kyi's call for tripartite dialog and national reconciliation.
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We have been able to support over 25 pro-democracy groups among the Burmese pro-democracy movement, groups that are supporting the movement, over the last 7 years, having spent over a total of $3.25 million over that period. Currently we have about $1.5 million, thanks in part to a special congressional appropriation for Burma. We have also worked, of course, in other countries in Asia. I would be happy to talk about any of those if you have any questions about it, and certainly I would be happy to answer any questions you might have or elaborate on any of these points. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Coan appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Ms. Coan. Next we will hear from Sidney Jones.
STATEMENT OF SIDNEY JONES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASIA WATCH
Ms. JONES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I guess I am the skeptic here, because while I support wholeheartedly the programs of the Asia Foundation, RFA, and NED, I think that it is misleading in some ways to believe that these kinds of programs are going to transform political systems in Asia into democracies, or even in some cases promote the process of democratization absent a range of other factors and other kinds of pressure, so I think that in some ways our expectations have to be a little bit lower, and when I hear, my colleague for example, talking about how some of these democracy programs should be tailored to adjust to changing circumstances in Cambodia, I say why couldn't we have prevented those circumstances from occurring in the first place.
So I think we need to step back a little bit and put these things in perspective. I started by listing some of the problems that I had with the democracy label, and let me just quickly go through some of those. One is that it tends to be equated too often with elections, and Bill Fuller explained quite well in his testimony why that is not always the case. Also, when we apply a label of democracy or a democratic adjective to a country, we treat it as a monolith, and I think India is a very good example of a country where, yes, it is the world's largest democracy, but there are also large States in India which are under President's rule, where local legislatures have been suspended, where there are draconian laws enforced, and it is misleading to think that democratic benefits are enjoyed by the whole population.
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I think that it is also the case that sometimes when we apply the label of a democracy to a country, we tend to ignore what happens afterwards when we see democratic forms rolled back. This was certainly the case in Sri Lanka in the 1980's. I also note here that the democratic label also fails to take into consideration in many cases the under-representation of women in the political process, and this is of course not unique to Asia.
There are also two other problems, one of them with the whole notion of democracy being a carbon copy of American political institutions, and that is certainly what Asian governments perceive. It is what some Americans in promoting democracy also convey, whether they are deliberately doing so or not. And I also do not agree that the Korean and Taiwanese models are necessarily the only model in Asia, or even that those models are applicable more widely in the rest of the Asian region. I think it is a bit of a mistake to see those processes as being somehow transferable to other parts of the region.
Rather than look at democracy and authoritarianism, I think it is perhaps more useful to look at what kinds of programs can expand political space, and I think a lot of the programs that we have been hearing about today to expand political space, even if I am not convinced that they are going to bring about a democratizing society in the long run, and I think that three of the rights that are particularly important to look at are freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly.
Even there, though, the trends in Asia are not particularly clear. Indonesia is a country that allows a high degree of freedom of association. There is a strong NGO movement. I do not think that those NGO's are necessarily going to become the catalyst for political change, and it is a mistake to see democracy promotion programs which embrace aid to those NGO's, which I think is enormously important and ought to be continued, as necessarily being the vehicle for transforming Indonesia. I think Indonesia is going to remain an authoritarian country for a long time to come, despite that very——
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Mr. BEREUTER. Ms. Jones, if we had a limited amount of money, which of course we do, are you suggesting we should spend it in different ways in Indonesia?
Ms. JONES. No, I am not. I think that probably the support to NGO's is probably one of the best things that can be done at this stage, but I think it is a mistake to see that as leading to a democratic transformation. It is creating some measure of accountability, of government accountability, and I think it is creating a measure of political space, but as I say later in the testimony, I think that Indonesia is a country, and we are seeing many other countries like it in Asia, where authoritarianism and a vibrant civil society can live hand in hand, and it may not lead to a democratic change, but I think the money is well spent.
Mr. BEREUTER. If I may interrupt you just a second, before you talked about the instance in which Americans seem to want to apply American models to democracy in Asia, and I think that is true. I think it is true about Congress, too. What do you think about parliamentary bodies? Do you think it is essential to democracy that you have one-man, one-vote, or maybe you prefer one-person, one-vote, or every single legislator? Do you have elements within it elected by particular constituencies?
Ms. JONES. I do not think that there should be one particular electoral model that is applicable across the board. I think that it is possible to look at a variety of different forms, and it may be the case that one-person, one-vote does not always apply. On the other hand, I think that in Hong Kong, for example, part of the debate there is taking back the elected constituencies that are already there. So I think, while on the one hand it is possible to have a wide range of different voting procedures and electoral systems, I think I would not want my remarks to be construed as supporting the development in Hong Kong on the legislature there.
Mr. BEREUTER. What would happen if we had a complete replication of the legislative body—just moving through the train arrangement and part of those people were not elected. Do you think Americans, including the Congress, would find that objectionable because it was not totally on a one-person, one-vote basis?
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Ms. JONES. I do not think that the United States or the Congress or members of the American public should find it objectionable simply because it was not one-person, one-vote, no.
Mr. BEREUTER. Do you think we would? Do you think it would still be criticized by a significant part of the American population?
Ms. JONES. I think, to be perfectly frank, that a significant portion of the American population is not particularly interested at all in what happens in Hong Kong. Of the people that are interested and do care, I do not think necessarily that you would get major objections raised if you were starting with a clean slate, that there would not necessarily be a demand that Hong Kong have a legislature that mirrors the American Congress. I think the problem there is a perception that what you are getting is rolled back from what you had in 1995.
Mr. BEREUTER. That is certainly true, but most of the parliamentary bodies do not have one-member——
Ms. JONES. That is true, and I think that should not be seen——
Mr. BEREUTER. One-member districts.
Ms. JONES. Right. Right.
Mr. BEREUTER. Most of the parliaments.
Ms. JONES. Yes, and I think that should not be seen as a problem per se. I think when an electoral system is changed so that the amount of democracy is weakened, that is fair game for criticism.
Mr. BEREUTER. Please continue if you can find your thread of thought that I interrupted.
Ms. JONES. OK. Well, there are a couple of things that I wanted to mention. I think that I said at the outset that democracy programs, absent other kinds of pressure, might not reach the desired goal, and there were several mentions of Cambodia here, and I would like to say that again, much as I think the efforts to build up the legal system in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge was incredibly important, and I think those programs do need to be continued, I also think there were a number of places and times since 1993 up until 1997 when the U.S. Government could have very strongly criticized the deterioration of the political situation inside Cambodia in a way that would have given some support to those efforts. In the area of legal reform, there should have been more pressure, for example, on the Cambodian Government to prosecute people who were perpetrators of human rights abuses.
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If you do not have that kind of conjunction of policy, all the democracy programs in the world are not going to get anywhere.
Mr. BEREUTER. Do you remember the resolution which the House passed in the previous Congress on Cambodia in the absence of executive branch criticism?
Mr. JONES. Yes, and you are to be congratulated for that.
Mr. BEREUTER. I agree, that is right. But why do you think there was a complacency within the executive branch in this process in Cambodia? I think I know, but what is your opinion?
Ms. JONES. I think it may stem from a number of different factors, and this is speculation. I am not privy, obviously, to the workings there. I think there was a concern that the forced marriage of Ranariddh and Hun Sen was unworkable, and even a more draconian single individual was better than an unworkable co-prime ministership that might be creating instability. I think that was one factor.
I think there was concern that Ranariddh was moving too close to the Khmer Rouge, but that ignored the fact that Hun Sen was trying to get the Khmer Rouge on his side, and in fact did use Kmer Rouge units in the coup, and I think there may have been concerns for regional issues as well, particularly with respect to Thailand and Vietnam, but I do not know the exact mix there.
Mr. BEREUTER. All of that may be true. I also think, if I may say so, that the Administration—and it is not a partisan comment—it might have been just as well the Bush Administration—desperately wanted to find that this U.N. involvement there was working.
Ms. JONES. No question, and I think that the failure that the coup has brought with it of the U.N. peacekeeping or peace building efforts is going to make it much, much more difficult to get support in the U.S. Congress probably for any future peacekeeping effort.
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Mr. BEREUTER. I think that is right, just as Somalia had its impact in a different way. Would you try to continue once more?
Ms. JONES. Very quickly, I wanted to bring out the fact that we are not just dealing with repression or authoritarianism any longer within national boundaries, and I think it is worth noting that we see in Asia, in particular, efforts to export controls, and it would be interesting to see how democracy programs or human rights programs at any rate could deal with this issue, because we have had Indonesia trying to prevent freedom of association in the Philippines when it came to East Timor programs. We have China trying to stop the Dalai Lama from speaking at the United Nations. We have Singapore trying to stop an Indonesian political opposition leader from speaking. This is happening across the region, and I think it is an issue that is of growing concern, and one that we have to deal with.
Two final points. I would like to have everyone read some of the work that Thomas Carruthers has done at the Carnegie Endowment, because he has done a very good job of analyzing some of the problems with democracy promotion programs, and one of the key things that he points to is that often democracy programs do not take into account power realities in a particular country, and I think that point needs to be underscored. I think he also makes the point very clearly that there tends to be almost an over-concentration, in some cases, on judicial and legal reform, and while I think everybody here wants to support the rule of law, and I think those legal reform efforts are enormously important, if you are dealing with a judiciary in legal system that is completely politicized, then all of the legal reform in the world is going to come up against that political barrier, and until and unless we find some way of addressing that from the top down and not just from the bottom up, I think we are going to face major problems.
I would also underscore what people here have said about corruption. I think corruption can undermine any kind of democratic programs as much as any other factor, and I will just close by saying that I want to reinforce the fact that I think all of the programs run by these three organizations need to be sustained and expanded, but I would go back, I think, to Mr. Shattuck's plea for humility in how much we can actually accomplish. Thank you.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones appears in the appendix.]
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much. I did not try to impose any kind of time limits or hurry any one on the panel since there is only myself in attendance at this point here on this side of the room, and I did not engage you in questions except for Ms. Jones who I interrupted on two occasions, but, and I hope you do not feel disappointed, I think I am not going to engage you further in questions. I hope that is a relief, actually, given the hour, and I am late for a constituent appointment.
I have marked up your testimony in great depth. Dr. Fuller, I know you departed from yours dramatically and that is excellent. That is much appreciated. You will see me writing frantically up here, so I am a beneficiary of your testimony, and I appreciate very much your time even though I am not going to engage further in questions. Thank you for giving it to us. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.]
A P P E N D I X
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