In 246 B.C., ten years after the Chou dynasty had been defeated by the Ch’in armies, a new king named Ch’in Shih Huang-ti came to the throne as the new emperor of China. Under his ruling, Ch’in Shih Huang-ti gave China an enduring form of government that followed the practices of Legalism. The philosophy that is Legalism supports the belief that a highly efficient and powerful government was the key to restoring order. Being that emperor Ch’in Shih Huang-ti had been a worshipper of Legalism, he endorsed certain concepts in an attempt to eliminate opposition. Through rewarding or punishing citizens depending on their obedience and controlling ideas as well as actions by ordering the ignition of all the books that were judged to be either useless or harmful, these ideas had arguably aided in concluding China’s prolonged period of disorder yet also abetted in the limitation of freedom. This way of conducting remained until the fall of the Ch’in in 202 B.C.. Currently, China is an authoritarian state that is ruled under a one-party system. This has been the case since the day Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949, “The Chinese Communist Party has been in sole control of China’s government”. Additionally, its government has been known to historically value state sovereignty over individual rights. Furthermore, even as the Ch’in dynasty’s short-lived reign came to an end, its Legalist customs still present an impact within the violation of human rights in China today.
The Chinese Communist Party authorizes the continuation of targeting religious and ethnic minorities. This is evident through the repression of Islam traveling throughout China. According to Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times, “After decades of relative openness that allowed more moderate forms of Islam to blossom, this (subduing) campaign represents the newest front in the Chinese Communist Party’s (extensive reversion) of individual religious freedoms”. The harsh suppression of Muslims began with the Uighurs in Xinjiang. It was about a decade ago when, at the hands of the Chinese government, more than one million Turkic Muslims in China’s western region of Xinjiang were incarcerated and even more forcefully assimilated. The intent behind this conditioning had been clarified by “Bu’ayixiemu Abulizi, director of the Moyu County Vocational Education and Training Center in Hotan Prefecture in the southwestern corner of Xinjiang, (to mean for a) change in the minds and thoughts of those who are forced to live there”. However, as stated by Jane Perlez of The New York Times, “The world has been noticeably quiet about (this region) where China has built a vast network of detention camps and systematic surveillance over the past two years in a state-led operation to convert Uighurs into loyal, secular supporters of the Communist Party”. This violation in the freedom of religion advanced into “China’s northwest, where the government stripped the most overt expressions of the Islamic faith from a picturesque valley (that captured the residency of most) devout Muslims. The authorities destroyed domes and minarets on mosques, including one in a small village near Linxia, a city known as ‘Little Mecca.’” This discriminatory animosity gradually reached officials in more regions and groups who took action by “shutting down mosques” and “banning the public use of Arabic script”.
The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly proven to have suppressed opposition to their governing. This means that any growing dissent that is expressed through forms of retaliation such as protests against China’s way of ruling are strictly discouraged. Furthermore, China hadn’t officially acknowledged human rights until after the march in Tiananmen Square during the early 1990s. However, as published by Jeff Widener of Gale in Context Opposing Viewpoints, “The events which led to the unparalleled suppression of the protests in June of 1989 actually began in 1985” when the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Hu Yaobang refused to respond to students and workers who had begun to rally in support of extensive democratic reforms throughout China with military force. As a result, Yaobang lost his position as chairman and passed away only two years later on April 15, 1989. Outpouring grief rang through Tiananmen Square where students began to gather in memory of Hu Yaobang and support for his political stand against military response. This moment is now recognized as a statement for democratic reforms which led to an uproar in strikes all across China. Although, the true horror hadn’t taken place until June 4, 1989 when “Tens of thousands of Chinese troops retook the center of the capital from pro-democracy protesters, killing scores of students and workers and wounding hundreds more as they fired submachine guns at crowds of people who tried to resist”.