On Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019, a Hearthstone esports player, Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung, voiced his support for Hong Kong protests in a post-tournament interview. Hearthstone is an online card-based strategy game created by Blizzard Entertainment, a U.S.-based company. As a result of his expression of support, he was banned by Blizzard for a year and all of his winnings were taken away.
In the English-speaking areas of the internet, the company explained that he had violated the tournament rules, citing section 6.1 that states: “Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0.”
This, however, differed from the explanation given by their partner company in China. The statement, as translated by IGN, said:
“We express our strong indignation [or resentment] and condemnation of the events that occurred in the Hearthstone Asia Pacific competition last weekend and absolutely oppose the dissemination of personal political ideas during any events [or games]. The players involved will be banned, and the commentators involved will be immediately terminated from any official business. Also, we will protect [or safeguard] our national dignity [or honor].”
Chinese game publisher Tencent has made investments in Blizzard, which may explain the ruling, but in no way makes it acceptable. This event has sparked a debate about American companies siding with China due to profitability, which in turn allows China to influence the actions of the company.
This is also not the first time that China has drawn worldwide attention. On Dec. 1, 2018 chairwoman and chief financial officer of Chinese communications company Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, was detained in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities for financial conspiracy. Huawei is currently in the middle of a data security scandal, as a provider of equipment for many countries’ 5G networks. There is concern that because Huawei is a Chinese telecommunications company, it will comply with any order from the Chinese government to hand over client data.
How would you feel if a Canadian company banned a player for expressing his support for human rights? How would it feel to have your personal data handed over to Canadian authorities just because you are using a device made by a Canadian telecommunications provider? That would cause an outrage, protest, and the government would probably start an investigation.
What is also important to remember is the fact that China is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council and has an obligation to uphold the principles of human rights as outlined by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR). The UNDHR is a document that was drafted and adopted by 18 United Nations member states after the Second World War. It is meant to ensure that all human rights are respected and that people are not treated unfairly, no matter what country they live in, what religious practices they follow, or what political stance they have.
However, it seems that China has little regard for human rights when it crosses their political or economic interests, a concern shared by the many citizens currently protesting in Hong Kong. Ever since sovereignty over Hong Kong was handed over from the United Kingdom to China in 1997, the people of Hong Kong have been relatively safe from Chinese intervention due to the conditions of the handover, specifically the Basic Law which expires in 2047. The Basic Law is a mini-constitution which states that Hong Kong has its own economy, legal and legislative system, and defends the civil liberties and freedoms of its people.
In June 2019 protests erupted in Hong Kong as a response to the introduction of a bill that looked to amend the extradition laws in Hong Kong. If passed, the bill, called the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019, it would allow Hong Kong authorities to detain and extradite accused or convicted criminals to areas with which Hong Kong currently does not have agreements regarding extradition. Such areas include Taiwan and, most importantly, mainland China, both of which are under the control of the Communist Party of China.
Citizens of Hong Kong were worried that the bill would allow the government of China to impact the autonomy of the region and civil liberties of both residents and visitors. A united movement against the bill was formed in June, and since then, the protestors have been fighting both the government and the Hong Kong police. The Chinese government has already expressed its readiness to intervene in the protests, despite the fact that Hong Kong already had its own police units dealing with the situation.
One of the protestors’ main objectives was to have the government withdraw the extradition bill from consideration, which happened on Sept. 4. The protests, however, have not stopped as there are four more objectives which the protesters aim to achieve:
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stop characterization of the protests as riots
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release and exonerate those arrested during the protests
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investigate the legitimacy of police activities during the protests
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see the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam
While the protesters are fighting for these objectives, there is another issue that is being discussed in Hong Kong media, which is mainland China’s social credit system and the possibility of its implementation in Hong Kong.
In 2014 the Communist Party of China officially announced plans to establish the social credit system, a population surveillance measure which allows the government to reward and punish citizens for their actions. Essentially, it is a point-based system of government trust, in that Chinese citizens lose or gain points for different actions, much like the way a credit score works. The system is still being run as a trial in over 43 Chinese cities, and while there is not yet an official way to gain points, some things that can be done are donating blood, giving money to charity, helping clean public areas, volunteering, and reporting on someone’s misbehaviour or family issues. Points can be lost by drinking too much alcohol, buying too many video games, refusing to settle problems out of court, littering, jaywalking, and swearing. The amount of points someone has influences what they can do — like buying train and airline tickets, applying for loans, sending children to certain schools, getting discounts on utilities and rent, and accessing bicycle-share services.
These facts alone are glaring violations of several UNDHR articles. The prohibition of airline and train ticket purchasing may go against article 13.1: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.”
Denying the use of certain schools or public services, such as bike sharing, violates article 21.2: “Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.”
Very high or very low social credit scores can also be publicly praised or shamed on television; blacklists of people with low scores are being published on the internet, and there are even apps which allow Chinese citizens to see if there are people with monetary debt around them.
Publicly shaming citizens with low social credit scores violates article 12: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
But what is more alarming is the fact that system is being introduced nationwide and by 2020 will encompass all regions and national minorities in China. One of the minorities to suffer from the social credit system has been a Turkic Muslim group called Uyghurs. Although they have communities in countries around the world, such as Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and the U.S.A., a very large percentage of the population lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China.
Through occasional trips to the region — the latest being in 2018 — an investigative journalist writing for the Russian newspaper ***Meduza has seen changes in the region over the past 15 years. China has been reshaping the area, slowly destroying the Uyghur architecture and culture and replacing it to reflect Chinese values. Since 2009 the region has been shaken by explosions, stabbings, and fights, an ongoing reaction to the Han Chinese killing of Uyghur workers in southern China. The killings sparked protests among the non-Han population in the region’s capital, Urumchi. The Chinese authorities responded to the unrest by killing 197 Uyghur people, arresting a thousand protestors, and later selecting 30 to be executed as a warning to potential rebels. Uyghurs have been constantly retaliating, but their region was cut from internet access for a whole year when the protests began, so this information barely became public. Xinjiang is also very important to the Chinese government because it is where most of China’s oil and gas is processed. Selected as the original trial city for China’s surveillance system, Xinjiang has been actively populated with surveillance systems including facial recognition cameras since early 2017, which give enough information about a person that he or she may be identified within minutes. Chinese authorities are also actively destroying old Uyghur literature and Muslim-inspired architecture, closing down mosques, banning traditional knife sales, Uyghur language, and religious and cultural practices. Those who are resisting these restrictions, and the social credit system, are sent to re-education camps.
The camps have been previously called fiction by the Chinese government, but in 2019, some were shown to a selected handful of journalists, including BBC’s John Sudworth. What the journalists have been allowed to see paints a positive picture of Han Chinese helping the Uyghur and other minority populations to correct extremist behaviour, which the Chinese government claims stops them from fully participating in society. The Uyghurs spoken to say that they have “made a mistake,” had a “weak awareness of laws,” were “affected by extremism,” and are happy to learn how to be better.
In order to learn to be better, the prisoners or “students,” as they are referred to by the staff during the interviews, are constantly learning about the Chinese Communist Party and its achievements; how to speak Mandarin; practicing acceptable forms of entertainment, such as dancing or painting; and how to work in the service industry. They are forced to live in a room with bunk-beds and toilet in the same room. Survivors of these camps say that the ones shown to the public are “show-camps,” where people are sent after spending time in much tougher camps, but even then they are threatened with violence and being relocated back to the stricter camps.
The stricter camps look more defensive and intimidating with watchtowers, barbed wire on the walls, and armed guards. The staff actively try to stop anyone from entering or even filming around them and journalists who have tried to go undercover are routinely stopped. The police forces are also controlling how much the even the local Han Chinese population may engage with foreign tourists, journalists, and other visitors.
Very few Uyghurs have managed to escape Chinese camps and those that have described a dystopian situation. In a recent Vice documentary, survivors of the camps said when people are taken away, Han Chinese occupy their property and become owners of Uyghur houses. People would usually be taken at night, and parents and children are separated and taken to different camps, likely never to see each other again. The government treats children of the Uyghur detainees and those who have tried to escape overseas, sometimes being forced to leave their children behind with relatives, as orphans and are sent to orphanages sometimes very far away from their home communities.
It is often unclear why individuals are being sent to the camps. They are given sentences and accused of some sort of misconduct; survivors in the documentary were arrested for learning Arabic or Uyghur languages, studying the Qur’an, or opening a non-Madarine speaking kindergarten.
When pressed about the fact that they collect people and send them to the camps, the Chinese authorities say that they are able to determine if the person will commit crimes ahead of time and thus re-educating them will prevent that from happening. Since Xinjiang is within the government’s jurisdiction, the local population has few ways of defending themselves apart from asking for help from other countries.
This is not the only time that the Chinese government decided someone’s guilt without due reason. In 1999, the Communist Party of China began and still continues to prosecute followers of a spiritual practice, called Falun Gong or “Practice of Dharma Wheel.” The practice started in 1992 and became very popular in China as it focuses on meditation techniques, moral teachings, and lacked a rigid structure. The Chinese government began to view it as a potential threat to the state due to its increasing size, independence, and requests to be legally recognized. The practice was banned in 1999 and since then many practitioners of Falun Gong have been arrested. According to an independent tribunal sitting in London, detained followers of the religion are “probably the principal source” of force-harvested organs in China. Similarly to the Uyghur population they cannot find help within their country and have to ask for outside help and protection.
Both of these cases, with the Uyghur people and the Falun Gong followers, and going back to the more recent case with Blizzard, we can see violations of several articles within the UN Declaration of Human Rights, specifically 9 and 18.
Article 18 states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Article 9 states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”
Being pursued and punished simply because your religion or spiritual practice is considered a threat to the political security of the government is a serious human rights violation, but China does not seem to have a problem with that. In fact, China seems to be more worried about trade deals and expansion into all possible markets. Huawei and Blizzard are just some of the examples of China pushing itself into other countries and their politics. China has invested into and owns many gaming companies which have players all around the world, including Canada.
Knowing about these events allows us to reconsider the view that China is just another player in worldwide politics. A player respects the rules of the game, but China is actively making its own rules and tries to enforce them upon others. Now, it is a personal choice for each and every one of us whether to use or not use Chinese-made technology or purchase games from companies that have close ties with China. However, we have to make sure that whichever choice we make, we are informed about all the possible issues connected with that choice; as in this example, companies could be and sometimes are, connected with human rights violations.
Illustrations: Renee Campbell/The Cascade
