By Dr.Rizzo
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees defines refugees as:
People who are afraid of staying outside their country for reasons of race, religion, nationality, specific social group status or holding specific political opinions, and who are unable or unwilling to be protected by the country because of this fear; or who do not have nationality and are not able to stay outside the country where he used to live because of the above things. Or people who are unwilling to return to the country because of the above fear.
Based on the above discussion (extracted from un.org), I would like to talk about a question: whether politics, a compulsory subject in China’s education system, is a kind of political persecution or whether it can be a reason to apply for political asylum, and whether it can apply for political asylum on the grounds of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft). In the UK’s political asylum applications, we can see that immigration and judges often require that there will be imminent security or freedom risks after returning to China to approve political asylum, but the first success rate of recent asylum applications is more than 70%. For the time being, I can think that this is the British government’s renewed attention to human rights, and it is also a major good news for asylum seekers.
Next, I would like to discuss from my personal point of view whether people who are educated in China and forced to study politics have the right to apply for political asylum. Politics, as a compulsory subject, runs through China from grassroots education to higher education. From the middle school entrance examination, college entrance examination, postgraduate enrolment to doctoral enrolment, politics is counted as a compulsory subject to enter the written examination score of candidates. Therefore, politics has been the most widely and deeply popularised as a compulsory subject.
First of all, the content of the subject “politics” as a compulsory course in China is a course that focusses on the compulsory export of a single political point of view to minors and young people, and requires learners to maintain absolute ideological unity with the authorities. Finally, it checks the output results of a single thought to students in the form of examination and links it with students’ performance. As a result, many Chinese students have to bow to the government to learn the subject of “politics” in the face of the pressure of further education. At the same time, it is immoral and unhumane to export single political values to minors and young people by means of compulsory teaching + examination inspection in education. The direct consequence of this behaviour is to use the education system to instill ideas recognised by those in power and promote habitual thinking to every educated person from an early age, so that the educated can lose the ability to think independently. In essence, this is a “political brainwashing” behaviour. Political brainwashing is referred to as “brainwashing”. Following the Korean War in the 1950s, after American soldiers were captured by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, they accepted the ideological transformation of the Communist Party of China. After being rescued, they returned to the United States and still supported the government of the Communist Party of China, so Edward Hunter, an American journalist, used The word “brainwash” describes this matter. ( Excerpt from the wiki) and the purpose of the compulsory political discipline in the Chinese education system is to embed the ideas of supporting the Communist Party government in the minds of young people to achieve the purpose of better control of the whole society. Then I believe that this is a kind of persecution from the government, and I have the following reasons:
1. The learning behaviour of political disciplines in the education system is mandatory.
2. The political discipline in Chinese education outputs a single political thinking and does not accept questions.
3. Refusing to study politics will be punished
4. Politics, a compulsory subject, is linked to further education, which violates people’s right to education. Whether you can receive a higher level of education should depend on personal will and personal ability, not on whether to accept the coercive indoctrination of political views.
When the above reasons are established and the parties bear different degrees of consequences for resisting this compulsory political education, it can be considered that the persecution of individuals by this compulsory political education required by the government is established. If you apply for political asylum on this reason, then this can correspond to the reason why you apply for political asylum from the United Nations Refugee Convention to stay outside your country for specific political opinions and cannot or are unwilling to accept your country’s protection because of this fear.
For the newly promulgated Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft), it has aroused widespread concern in the society that it gives law enforcers a broader right to enforce the law and the right to define illegal acts, especially the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of Article 34, “In public places or forcing others to wear and wear in public places, which is detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation, Costumes and signs that hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation “making, disseminating, promoting and disseminating articles or speeches that damage the spirit of the Chinese nation and hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation”. Those words and deeds involved in these two contents will be detained and fined. In addition, Article 27 of the bill adds slogans that incites to disrupt public order, and articles 28 and 31 add radio stations without authorisation, which have also become the reason why law enforcers can arrest Chinese residents. I think there are two reasons why the new revised draft law can attract widespread social attention.
The first legislative work is opaque and unreasonable. It is an indisputable fact that the long-term integration of legislative, judicial and administrative powers in China has also been fully demonstrated in this Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft). The bill was enacted because of the Chinese government’s stronger desire to regulate domestic citizens. The purpose is that in the face of today’s huge economic downturn, the government needs a tougher means to intimidate and threaten citizens to prevent mass incidents. The people involved in the legislative work are not elected officials, and the black box operation is not public at the voting stage of whether the law can be passed, which makes the legislative work essentially legislated for the law enforcement process, and the law enforcement is to maintain the stability of the regime. At the same time, because Chinese citizens do not have the real right to vote, they have lost their intervention in the legislative process, so that every legislative process is controlled by the government, which is unstoppable.
Second, there is a lack of objective definition of illegal behaviour. Article 34 of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft) lacks an objective definition of “damaging the spirit of the Chinese nation and harming the feelings of the Chinese nation”. The bill does not give a clear definition and explanation of what is “damage the spirit of the Chinese nation and harm the feelings of the Chinese nation”. As a result, there is no objective standard to judge whether the parties violate the law during the implementation of the bill. Law enforcement personnel may add more subjective will to the process of law enforcement, and most of the time, the law enforcement actions of Chinese law enforcement personnel often come from administrative orders issued by the government rather than upholding the constitutional and legal requirements, which leads to the government’s determination of citizens’ behaviour of “damage the spirit of the Chinese nation and hurting the feelings of the Chinese nation”. It can be flexibly changed according to the needs of stabilisation work. At the same time, the creation of “socialist white terror” in the crowd makes everyone in danger to achieve the goal that people dare not resist the government’s stability maintenance.
For the above two reasons, the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft) has received extensive attention from the society in China and the consistent opposition of the group of intellectuals. On China’s Internet, many intellectuals can be seen expressing concern about the government’s extensive suppression of various opinions by using the vague definition of “damaging the spirit of the Chinese nation and hurting the feelings of the Chinese nation” after the formal implementation of the bill. At the same time, it is also accompanied by many Internet celebrities with government backgrounds who openly support the Public Security Management. The Punishment Law (Revised Draft) and attacks those who are dissatisfied with the new bill to put on “traitors, spies” and other high hats.
The promulgation of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft), like the purpose of forcibly joining the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Safeguarding National Security Law of the People’s Republic of China in Annex III of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in July 2020, all of 2020, all of which are aimed at providing services for the government to arrest dissidents. Legalisation is based on and creates an atmosphere of “socialist white terror” in the crowd. Then, after the promulgation of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, a large number of Hong Kong people applied for political asylum for fear of being arrested and persecuted by the Hong Kong government on the grounds of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, and were soon approved. In the same way, I think that the Chinese can also apply for political asylum on the grounds of worrying about the Chinese government’s arrest and persecution of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft), because the purpose of the bill determines the nature of its persecution of the Chinese people and makes China move towards Sovietisation or even Nazisification step by step.
In order to help you better understand the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (Revised Draft), I will give an easy-to-understand example: before December 7, 2022, it was said that unblocking was to hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation, and after it was lifted on December 7, 2022, it was said that it was to hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation. China’s epidemic blockade was lifted for a long time. Later, it was mentioned that the epidemic control was harmful to the feelings of the Chinese nation. The essence is that any unfavourable news from the Chinese government can be sanctioned on the source of hurting national feelings.
Summarise:
In China in the current environment, anyone is eligible to apply for political asylum overseas. Everyone born in China is persecuted by the Chinese government to varying degrees, and even the senior officials of the Communist Party of China are in danger. This is a country without the rule of law. Today, other people’s disaster is likely to come to them tomorrow, even for those who are superior. Compulsory political education in China’s education system instills unified political standards and concepts that are in line with the interests of the Chinese government for all people, and tries to create an ideal society that meets their interests by using social pressure to isolate and suppress sober people or dissidents. China lacks objective standards for the use of the definition of law. Often the subjectivity of law enforcers and even those in power determines the scope of use of the law, making the law eventually become China’s political tool. Officials infighting to eliminate competitors, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises are used to suppress private enterprises and foreign enterprises, and government security departments are used to arrest. Dissidents and so on. From this point of view, in China in the current environment, anyone is eligible to apply for political asylum overseas.
