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EU fighting a lone battle for human rights in Asia

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Federica Mogherini High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, shakes hands with China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi after a joint news conference at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, 19 China April 2017 (Photo: Reuters/Jason Lee).

In Brief

The European Union has a long tradition of promoting democracy and human rights in Asia, often in informal cooperation with the United States. Until 2014, it seemed that things were moving in the right direction, but since then there has been backsliding in China and several Southeast Asian countries.

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Xi Jinping has tightened control in China, the military endures in Thailand, Duterte’s drug purge is ongoing in the Philippines, the Tatmadaw commits ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, Hun Sen and his party have dissolved the opposition in Cambodia, and so on.

The European Union has struggled to cope with this reversal. It has human rights dialogues with China and most countries in Southeast Asia as well as bloc-to-bloc discussions with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. But the results in these forums have been mixed.

Asian elites often accuse the European Union of lecturing them on human rights. The European Union’s response is that human rights are universal and that many Asian countries have ‘signed up’ to accept such values in numerous UN documents.

This is not to say that the European Union has a clean slate: it is at least partially justified to accuse the European Union of hypocrisy for turning a blind eye to abuses in member states like Poland and Hungary or in countries like Saudi Arabia while it criticises Asian nations. But the hypocrisy only extends so far: the European Union is now taking Poland and Hungary to task for infringing EU norms.

The European Union receives varying levels of support from its member states on human rights. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have traditionally been the strongest supporters. But Greece and Hungary have both, under pressure from Beijing, blocked critical resolutions aimed at China’s human rights record. Securing a united EU position is unlikely to become easier in the future due to economic pressures that are driving less affluent states closer to Beijing.

The main lever that the European Union has at its disposal is trade sanctions. It has maintained an arms embargo against China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. It preserved tight economic sanctions against Myanmar until the country began to democratise. It is now preparing fresh sanctions against those in the Myanmar military involved in atrocities against the Rohingya and against Cambodia for its draconian measures against the opposition. It has suspended trade talks with Thailand until there is a civilian government in power and has refused to continue trade talks with the Philippines.

The European Union has also used its free trade agreement with Vietnam to ensure Hanoi signs up to international agreements on labour standards. Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom is a strong advocate for human rights and is aware of the strong and differing feelings they muster in the European Parliament. These divergent views must be taken into account as it is the Parliament that must ratify all trade deals.

Only Norway, Canada and occasionally Australia and New Zealand support the European Union’s efforts to promote democracy and human rights in the region — and Norway is quite cautious after receiving lengthy political and trade sanctions from China when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Despite professing support for human rights, neither Japan nor South Korea is prepared to criticise countries in Asia. Neither is India, the largest democracy in the world. Among Asian nations, only Indonesia and Malaysia have joined the European Union in making critical comments about the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and they did so to support their domestic agendas.

The biggest problem is the lack of support from the United States. With Donald Trump in the White House, Washington no longer places emphasis on human rights except when specific issues contravene US interests — North Korea being the most recent example. China has been given a free pass, and authoritarian leaders from Southeast Asia have been feted without a word about their human rights records. During his visit to Manila in November, Trump described President Duterte as a ‘good guy’ and did not utter a word of criticism about extra-judicial killings.

Unlike the European Union or the Obama administration, Trump has shown no interest in tying trade deals to human rights. Even when the United States does make public statements about human rights (as Rex Tillerson did in Myanmar in November), it tends not to follow up because of a desire to continue selling US military equipment. There are strong ties between the Pentagon and local militaries throughout Asia that continue to influence the US approach to human rights.

This change in US attitudes puts the European Union in a difficult situation. It does not wish to push the Philippines, Thailand or Myanmar into the hands of China and thus lose all influence. Local leaders also ask the European Union why it continues to push its normative agenda when the United States has ceased to do so.

The European Union is exposed. It has lost an important ally and there are only a small number of like-minded countries prepared to offer support. It is also striving to ensure a united EU voice regardless of whether or not individual member states are pursuing their own economic interests.

Despite these difficulties, the European Union cannot give up on its treaty-based normative agenda and should continue to link trade deals to human rights and speak out on abuses. It has already issued three critical statements on China in 2018. But its human rights advocacy may have to arrive in a different form: there is likely to be less lecturing and more focus on practical issues such as training judges and journalists, supporting law schools and exchanging information on good governance.

Fraser Cameron is Director of the EU-Asia Centre in Brussels.

3 responses to “EU fighting a lone battle for human rights in Asia”

  1. Hi, it is wonderful that the EU cares about human rights in Asia (and presumably elsewhere). I suggest the EU would be more effective if it simply engages in a dialogue with Asian countries, and let Asian countries decide the best way forward. After all, emerging economies have to meet development goals, and often lack the institutional framework (as well as fiscal space) to tackle both human rights concerns and development goals.

    The EU (and the West generally) could lead by example. The EU could (for example) engage with Australia over its treatment of refugees. I understand many Australians feel embarrassed by their government’s treatment of refugees. Rather than hail Australia’s treatment as a possible solution to the EU’s own refugee concerns, might the EU and Australia work proactively to put an end to the refugee crisis that we currently confront?

    If the EU (and the West generally) were to do more to take in refugees, it would relief the refugee burden that fall on many emerging countries, not just the “frontline countries” like Jordan. Unlike Australia, Asian countries generally do not turn away refugees (although they try to). Many refugees end up in countries like Malaysia, with no where else to go. Might Australia and the EU reflect on their own responsibilities to assisting these refugees, even if they are “economic refugees”?

    I look forward to further discussion and debate about the world’s collective responsibility to refugees. There are 3 key challenges that confront our generation: (i) climate change, (ii) inclusive and sustainable growth, and (iii) the refugee crisis. It is right that we pay attention to human rights, but I feel sure human rights will be better respected in a world with inclusive and sustainable growth, free from climate induced threats, and an efficient system for looking after political and economic refugees.

    • I would like to add that the advancement of human rights is a long-term project, and we ought to be patient and work steadily to foster human rights around the world. There is no need to depend on the US, the EU or any particular country to foster human rights.

      Having said that, it would be worthwhile discussing what exactly our collective goals in relation to human rights are. For me, human rights ought to be viewed comprehensively to include, not just a basic set of liberties, but also a basic set of freedoms to pursue lives and goals that each individual has reason to value. To the extent governments in Asia have successfully lifted its people from poverty, poor health, illiteracy, infant mortality, etc, they ought to be given credit for expanding the human rights of their peoples to live lives and pursue goals that they have reason to value.

      Also, I would argue against seeing human rights as some transcendental set of rights. Instead, I would take a comparative approach to the advancement of human rights. Each society needs to look at the alternative directions that can be feasibly achieved, and decide which direction is the best that can be feasibly achieved given the institutions and capabilities of that society. It is very well to point to some transcendental idea of human rights, but in practice is unfeasible to achieve.

      I suggest that European ideas of human rights are likely to coincide with the set of rights that are feasible for European societies to achieve, but need not coincide with the feasible set for Asian societies. Suppose an Asian observer were to argue that Palestinian refugees have a human right to return to lands they once possessed in Israel. Is that a right that Israel can feasibly give effect to? If not, what is the next feasible alternative? Might Europeans acknowledge that Palestinian refugees have a right to settle in Europe, given that returning to Israel is not feasible? Yet, there is very little discussion within Europe about the responsibilities of Europeans to the human rights of Palestinian refugees.

      Ideally, our conversation about human rights ought to take account of the views and experiences of societies outside our own, as otherwise we may be trapped with parochial ideas about human rights. So it is right for Europeans and Asians to have an ongoing conversation about the nature of human rights, but each society must ultimately decide for itself what the requirements of human rights are, having regard to experiences elsewhere in the world.

  2. As a Sri Lankan, in recent years, when I watch and read about how Western governments and law enforcement authorities act when a terror attack hits London, Paris, Brussels or Barcelona, and how they go after the Muslim youth within their own countries labelling them as suspected “Islamic terrorists” or “home-grown radicals” I laugh to myself thinking what a bunch of hypocrites these Europeans are!

    For 30 years when my homeland Sri Lanka was hit by such terror attacks perpetuated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), each time there was a suicide bomber blowing himself/herself up, there were no dearth of advice coming from Europeans on why Sri Lankans should not target Tamil youth as potential suspects, why their grievances should be listened to, why the armed forces should not kill suspected terrorists without a proper trial, why the Sri Lankan air force should not bomb suspected LTTE camps because it could kill innocent civilians, and so forth. They even funded NGOs that were coached to preach multiculturalism, secularism, peace education, etc. But, when Europe is hit by terrorism all that is forgotten. They even send drone aircrafts to bomb Muslim communities thousands of kilometers away in Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Middle East claiming these terrorists were trained in camps in those areas. In the process they kill innocent men, women and children.

    If the European learn to behave according to what they preach, Asians will treat European hectoring about human rights with some respect. We would also like to remind Europeans that they reached this stage of economic development by invading, enslaving and plundering the wealth of Asia. So who are they to preach human rights to us? Hope the author could address these issues.

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