Chinese Lawyers

At a time when the Chairman decides he is the world's leader for global free trade and makes statements to Europes economic leaders in Davos, we might remember that China is anything but the world leader in contrary political opinions.  There is a piece in this week's Wall Street Journal on the treatment of lawyers representing human rights cases.  It is one thing to discourage lawyers from representing a particular type of client and another to torture a person to the point of insanity to make sure they never practice law or any other kind of profession again.

I wonder what makes a man represent a client when the consequences are so great to their personal well being.  "Dedicated to human rights" does not quite go far enough here.  The liberal left has said next to nothing about this, and I suspect it is because it is so horrible and not something anyone can do anything about, that they do nothing.  That would be exactly what the Chinese would like.

This is not fake news, though the Chinese would love to have us believe it was manufactured by some insurgent group trying to overthrow their government.  They are perfectly willing to use lawyers to defend their own people in U.S. Courts but are not willing to accept that lawyers can represent people who have different opinions of how the government should operate.  We should have known this was not going to go well when they put NGOs under control of the police forces.

The Chinese tried several times to float their own economic policies in South Asia, and the world seems to believe they will be successful now the the United States has backed out of the TPP.  They were soundly rejected each time by governments that are a lot smarter than we are about China, being so close and so small as most of them are.  They have to be quick or they will fall under China's sphere and it will be hard to get away from reliance on them.  They look out for themselves without poking a finger in the Dragon's eye, advice that would go well in the White House too.  A country that tortures its own lawyers for doing their job is one to be careful of.