Now let’s address the issue of “Human rights are not political” and see why it’s so important. Let me put forward the conclusion first: rights defense (“HRD”) or human rights(“HR”) causes are NOT political opposition causes.

Since the end of Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1976, foeign journalists, teachers, and later some HR organizations (“orgs”) entered China. The first thing they did was to know and report on HR related cases, some of which even people of my age didn’t know at the time.

Looking back at some influencial cases, where, HR orgs were seen taking the lead in investigating and reporting, then were recorded by HR orgs into their annual reports on HR situation around the world. After that, some Western governments, e.g., U.S., would try rescuing the victims from imprisonment and invite them to live in their countries. Chinese government, under the policy of nourishing obscurity and developing power, restrained itself from repressing foreigners involved in reporting these cases, meanwhile, foreign governments pressed their counterpart in China for releases. Under kind of cooperation, some did manage to enjoy theirs releases and went to the West on exile.

In Jiang Zemin era (perhaps up to 2001 or so), such solutions were still open till China managed to be admitted to WTO. Then the next case of the kind happened ten year’s ago, i.e., Chen Guangcheng’s release on the intervention of Hilary Clinton, and entered America.

Later on, such incidents have never happened on the targeted people, such as Gao Zhisheng from China, Gui Minhai, a naturalized Swedeish citizen, Hongkongers, Taiwanese, even Caucasians. All got arrested, sentenced to imprisonments, etc.; none got released.

Nevertheless, the way of rescuing people from HR abuses seem to have formed a pattern, where orgs abroad would be dedicated in reporting, spreading, and rescuing. This pattern has been followed as routines, like a machine running day in and day out. Domestically, people have also adopted similar patterns trying to rescue people, such as petitioners, by pressing the government.

If looking back into the dissenting struggles over the past few decades since 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, you might not be able to find other incidents than those. The cases fall into the same type, except the names of the victims are different. These victims are called “political opponents”, because they are believed to have opposed the government.

However, by the International laws and mandates, these cases are categorized as HR or HRD cases, not political cases. Yet, why these cases were treated as political cases if they were in fact not? Why do all political opponents seek to identify themselves as such by involving themselves in the above mentioned mechanism?

The answer is: When a country does not have political opposition forces over the past decades, HR org and HR advocacy groups have become an alternative to the “political oppositions”; their causes, to the “politcal opposition causes”. However, HR groups and orgs by nature are neutral bodies in defense of individual HR cases. They won’t work on any political opposition agenda that may involve work such as strategizing, organizing, training, recruiting and expanding the political oppositions. As a matter of fact, none of these HR or HRD orgs has ever engaged in such actions aiming at political oppositions in China and Chinese issues.

Being alternatives involves two major issues: 1. Its state of being will consuming lots of resources for political opposition causes; 2. its state of being cannibalizes the genuine political opposition causes. These two problems prevent political opponents from joining political opposition camp, which does not exist, instead lead or mislead them to join HR advocacy groups or HRD camps, which have no agenda to advance political opposition planning or actions. That accounts for the reason why most HR & HRD group members are afraid and stay away from the “illegal” opposition forces.

In terms of political science, all authoritarian states will label political opposition forces as illegal, which is termed “parallel structures” in political science. If they were not illegal, as opposed to what HR or HRD activists would proudly do to justify themselves as legal actions takers and legal citizens, there wouldn’t be any political opposition movement at all. That’s why we see so many, or almost all, HR or HRD activists would gladly and openly announce their identities as such and their actions as role models, because after all, for what they have done, it’s not genuine political opposition movement (and thus legitimate by their own standards).