China puts the brakes on torture of suspects, witnesses

News that China had issued new rules discouraging the use of torture to encourage suspects to confess or witnesses to testify in court is a great development for the criminal justice system there, but should be a giant stop sign for western governments trying to open trade routes to the world's most populous country. Sure, the new regulations announced Sunday bring China more in line with western ideas of justice and human rights, and are welcome, but they are long overdue. China executes more people -- 1,700 a year is Amnesty International's estimate -- than the rest of the world's countries combined, according to the New York Times. Mistreatment of suspects and, sometimes, of reluctant witnesses is common in China, the Times said. What that says about Western companies and governments doing business with China is not good, since they are supporting a terrible system. Apparently, the central government's previous attempts to liberalize the system have met with mixed results, the Times said. So, the latest pronouncement by top Chinese law enforcement and judicial bodies, while positive on the surface, will only mean improvement if enforced nationwide. The new regulations, which bar the use of confessions obtained by torture and require police officers to testify in court if a defendant alleges mistreatment, were issued a few weeks after a farmer was released from prison after 10 years after he was convicted using a confession obtained through torture. The case came to light after the alleged victim turned up alive, and caused an uproar in the normally closed society -- a huge concern for the government in Beijing, which puts a premium on social order. “Judicial practice in recent years shows that slack and improper methods have been used to gather, examine and exclude evidence in various cases, especially those involving the death penalty,” the central government said in a statement, the Times said. Legal observers in China were optimistic over the new rules. “They have come just in time because the necessity is so great,” said Zhang Xingshui, a Chinese defense lawyer. “It is a good cure for loopholes, because legal workers are often under so much pressure to get cases closed no matter what it takes.” A professor at the government-owned Chinese People's Public Security University in Beijing told the Times that the provision requiring police to testify in court was revolutionary for China. “This may be common practice for police in the West or in Hong Kong, but it is a new thing for Chinese policemen to testify in court,” Cui Min said. “We have to cultivate a new mindset, one that accepts the idea of possibly setting free a criminal over wrongfully convicting an innocent man.” Of course, it would have been a lot better if Western countries had insisted on major reforms in China before opening their markets and integrating Beijing into the world economic system. But China appears to have fully embraced the idea that there is more to be gained from peaceful relations with the rest of the world than from aggressive isolation, even if it means liberalizing how the Communist Party runs the country. And that is very good news.

Democratic irony in Czechoslovakia -- government could ban Communist Party

It's hard to be surprised to hear that Czechoslovakia might ban the Communist Party -- maybe, the surprise is that the Communists still exist formally in that country at all. The party is the sole surviving Communist Party in any of the former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe, according to the New York Times. The countries were dominated politically and economically by the Soviets for decades after World War II until the Soviet Union began to implode in the 1980s. Czechoslovakia broke away in 1989, in the so-called Velvet Revolution, but the Communist Party remained intact as the country embraced democracy. But now, a group of senators are trying to ban the party unless it recants its underlying philosophy of Marxist revolution. The group, led by Sen. Jaromir Stetina, whose grandmother helped found the Communist Party, have asked Prime Minister Jan Fischer, himself a former member of the party, to petition the Supreme Administrative Court to suspend party activities, the Times said. “We believe the Communist Party should be suspended until they give up the title of ‘communist’ and denounce Marx and Lenin, who regarded violence as a legitimate means of gaining power,” Stetina said. “Not even the millions of dead bodies, which are the consequence of Lenin’s policies, have convinced the Czech Communist Party to abandon his teachings.” But many Czechs believe the new Czech democracy should not ban any parties and leave decisions about who to seat in parliament to the electorate. The new push can reportedly be traced to a Communist Party statement following celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in November, the Times said. The statement denounced the democratically elected governments since 1989 for what it called "promises and lying" and contended that Czechs did not want to give up communism in 1989. “The Communists ruined this country and oppressed freedom and yet here they are 20 years later in our Parliament,” said David Cerny, the artist who painted a Soviet tank pink in 1991 to transform a memorial to the Soviet Army. “It is a national disgrace. The Communists are endangering the country. The Czechs need to wake up.” But the Communist Party received nearly 13 percent of the vote in the 2006 parliamentary elections and is the country's third largest political party. The party's leader, Vojtech Filip, told the Times that the Communist Party did not support regime change except at the ballot box. "We are a legal party and always act according to the Constitution," Filip said. But Filip did allow that he thought Karl Marx was "the greatest thinker of the millennium."

Taiwan government should survive turmoil over typhoon response

Monday's resignation by Taiwan's premier is not expected to alter the current administration's focus on better ties with China, according to the Reuters international news service. More cabinet ministers are expected to resign in the furor of what most see as a botched response to devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot, which struck the island over three days in August and killed 758 people. Torrential rains caused massive landslides that buried villages in the southern islands, Reuters said. President Ma Ying-jeou accepted the resignation of Premier Liu Chao-shiuan and appointed Wu Den-yih, another top Nationalist Party official, to replace him. "I'm the top administrator and all of the political responsibility rests on my shoulders, so I offered my resignation to the president, and he agreed," Liu said, according to Reuters. Ma has faced severe criticism over his government's disaster response efforts, but mostly for remarks he made after the disaster that appeared to blame residents of the six affected counties for not being adequately prepared. Wu said at a news conference that he would pursue Ma's policies of stronger economic ties with Beijing, Taiwan's rival since the 1949 revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power in the mainland. The Nationalist Party fled offshore to nearby Taiwan, where it now rules an island nation of 23 million. China maintains that Taiwan is a renegade province and frequently threatens to recapture the island by force. Taiwan's ruling party was considered by many Western nations, including the United States, to be the legitimate rulers of mainland China until 1971, when the United Nations transferred its seat to the Communist government. Taiwan's vice-premier, Paul Chiu, also resigned Monday and was replaced by another party official, Chu Li-lun. Hsu Yung-ming, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan's capital, told Reuters it was customary in Taiwan for the premier to resign in such a circumstance.