As the Clinton Administration pushes for granting China Most Favored Nation’s (MFN) status in trading with the United States, Douglass W. Cassel, Jr., executive director of DePaul University College of Law’s International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI), says moral appeals should be made to China in an effort to persuade it to comply with international human rights standards.

Cassel said that Congress probably will go along with President Clinton’s push for MFN status "even though current complaints again China include not only human rights but serious grievances involving trade, campaign contributions and arms sales."

Human rights advocates must find another path than political, said Cassel.

"It is time for the human rights movement to wake up and smell the tea," Cassel said. "As we approach the coming Chinese century, trying to muscle Asia’s emerging superpower on human rights is akin to Costa Rica trying to compel the U.S. to pay our back dues to the U.N. The odds are better with a mix of persuasion, low level pressure, patience, possible political realignments inside China, and more patience."

Cassel said that when it comes to power politics, human rights will lose to the ever-more powerful China, which is tragic because that means that one-fifth of the world’s population does not have human rights protection.

Without the support of other governing bodies, China will continue as it has, unless persuaded by other tactics, said Cassel, who suggested that there is a lesson to be learned from the example set in South Africa by now President Nelson Mandela to change its apartheid policies.

Cassel said that those working for human rights in China should focus less on trade sanctions and diplomatic maneuvers and more on vigils and public statements against its policies.

"Moral leaders from Christ to Mandela have shown, in the face of temporal power, that preserving moral legitimacy can be the surest path to victory in the long run," he said.

To contact Cassel at DePaul call 312/362-5919.