China

The president of Beijing's Olympic Organizing Committee was once found liable for torture in a U.S. federal court, a review of court records by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. The 2004 judgment against Liu Qi -- a member of the country’s powerful Politburo -- received little media attention at the time. The U.S. Olympic Committee was unaware of the allegations, according to recent interviews.

In an extensive legal opinion, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco determined that Liu was responsible for the illegal detention and torture of two Chinese nationals and a sexual assault against a French woman in China. The two Chinese women later sought refuge in the United States.

“What difference does it make?” asked Anita L. DeFrantz, the senior U.S. member of the International Olympic Committee, when informed of the judgment against Liu. “I care very deeply about human rights,” DeFrantz said. “[But] this doesn’t tarnish the Games.”

Human rights advocates, on the other hand, said the 2004 court finding against Liu reflects badly on the Olympic movement in light of Liu’s involvement in the 2008 Summer Games.

“These Games are pretty damned tarnished,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, upon learning of the court’s judgment against Liu. Human Rights Watch has criticized the International Olympic Committee for choosing China—which has long been criticized for its human rights record—as host of the Summer Games. “The IOC is operating in a moral void,” she said.

Liu, 65, the man responsible for preparing Beijing for the 2008 Summer Games, is one of China’s most prominent political figures. After serving as mayor of Beijing, Liu was promoted in 2002 to Beijing Communist Party secretary and given a seat on the country’s 25-member Politburo, China’s top decision-making body. Last May, Liu made Time magazine’s “Time 100,” a list of "100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world."

Liu’s legal troubles in the U.S. began in 2002 when members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement sued him in San Francisco federal court under laws that allow foreigners to take legal action against their alleged torturers. Liu was served with legal papers at San Francisco International Airport while en route to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

The Chinese government in 1999 outlawed the Falun Gong along with certain Christian groups. The U.S. State Department has since reported in its annual International Religious Freedom reports that Falun Gong members have been subjected to a range of harassment and torture by the Chinese government, including shock treatments, and that some have died from repeated physical abuse.

The lawsuit alleged that as mayor, Liu directed security forces to violently crush the Falun Gong. The plaintiffs claimed that Liu’s forces subjected them to severe beatings, sexual abuse and “electric shocks through needles placed in [the] body.” Those suing included two Chinese nationals, two Swedes, one French woman and a dual citizen of Israel and the U.S.

Liu never responded in court to the accusations, but the Bush administration entered the fray, urging the court to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit "is not the best way for the United States to advance the cause of human rights in China," the administration argued in court filings. "The United States Government has emphasized many times to the Chinese Government, publicly and privately, our strong opposition to violations of the basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners in China.”

"We would respectfully urge the Court to fashion its final orders in a manner that would minimize the potential injury to the foreign relations of the United States," the State Department said.

Despite the administration’s arguments, the court determined that the plaintiffs were subjected to “torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and arbitrary detention,” according to the 2004 decision. Liu was held liable.

But the default judgment -- Liu did not contest the charges in court -- was a hollow victory, said David J. Bederman, an international law expert and professor at Emory Law School. “[The plaintiffs] got their day in court, but they didn’t really get anything else.” No damages were awarded.

DeFrantz, the senior U.S. member of the International Olympic Committee, said this week that Liu’s alleged involvement in human rights violations will not negatively impact the 2008 Summer Games.

“No one will remember who the organizers were,” DeFrantz said.

The Bush administration is trying to scuttle a federal human rights lawsuit that threatens to embarrass one of China’s top political leaders. The administration says the case could jeopardize trade and “has already had a chilling effect on U.S.-China relations,” documents show.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. district court, accuses Bo Xilai—a member of China’s elite Politburo and until recently the country’s trade minister—of controlling and directing forced labor camps where inmates were beaten, suffocated and killed.

The abuses occurred while Bo was governor of Liaoning province between 2001 and 2004, before he was named China's minister of commerce, according to the complaint.

If the lawsuit goes forward, the Bush administration argues it could create a “diplomatically undesirable inquiry” -- into Bo’s -- “responsibility for alleged torture and extrajudicial killing,” according to court filings. These “difficult and sensitive questions,” the administration said, “need not be confronted at this time.”

The plaintiffs are all part of the Falun Gong religious movement, members of which according to a 2007 U.S. State Department report were subjected to shock treatments, forced abortions and “credible reports of deaths due to torture and abuse” at the hands of Chinese authorities. Protestant and Catholic priests and their followers were also abused, according to the annual report, which echoed those from previous years.

The United Nations, in its own report on global torture, last year alleged that while Bo was governor of Liaoning province, Falun Gong members were killed for their hearts, livers and other organs, which were removed for reuse in transplant patients. At the time, the Chinese dismissed the allegations of organ harvesting as “rumor.”

Despite the reports, the Bush administration has asked Judge Richard J. Leon, who is hearing the Bo case in the District of Columbia federal court, to dismiss it, saying the suit has had “immediate adverse foreign policy consequences.”

“It will undercut the U.S. government’s efforts to engage China on human rights issues, including its treatment of the [Falun Gong],” according to diplomatic correspondence reviewed by the Center for Investigative Reporting. “It could also adversely affect U.S. engagement with China on a broad range of other issues, including counter-terrorism, law enforcement, economics and trade, trafficking in persons, adoption, narcotics suppression, and nuclear proliferation.”

The civil action against Bo, 58, was filed under federal statutes that allow noncitizens to sue alleged torturers in U.S. courts. It comes at a delicate time for U.S.-China relations, and the Bo case offers a rare glimpse into the administration’s strategy to aggressively protect its financial and diplomatic relationship with a country long considered an ideological nemesis.

During Bo’s tenure as commerce minister, U.S.-China trade increased 67 percent, to nearly $387 billion in 2007. China is now America’s second-largest trading partner. Its recent crackdown on protesters in Tibet has heightened worldwide concern and attention regarding its human rights policies. The focus comes as the Communist regime prepares to host this year’s Summer Olympics.

Behind Closed Doors

Four members of the Falun Gong living outside of China filed the lawsuit against Bo in 2004. The case was first reported on in 2006, by the Legal Times trade magazine, and has since received little attention publicly. But privately, the allegations against Bo drew immediate concern at the highest diplomatic levels.

Bo was served with the legal papers in an embarrassing episode at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. While passing through the hotel lobby, on route to a dinner with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “an unidentified man suddenly rushed toward Minister Bo and the Chinese entourage,” according to a complaint letter sent from the Chinese Embassy to the State Department. “Minister Bo and other members of the Chinese entourage swiftly dodged this physical attack.” A U.S. court clerk, however, considered Bo served.

As the case moved through the courts, China’s Foreign Affairs Minister Li Zhaoxing warned his U.S. counterpart—Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—of financial consequences if the case were to proceed, according to a 2006 letter sent directly to Rice.

Minister Li described the Falun Gong as a cult and repeatedly called its case a “frame-up” against China. He went on, saying if the case proceeded, it would undermine “our economic and trade ties.”

“This is something neither of us wants to see,” the minister wrote.

A month later, China’s Justice Minister Wu Aiying wrote then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking that he give personal attention to the Bo suit and “resolve the case” and suggesting some American legal principles that could be applied in getting it dismissed.

The Justice Department has since taken an active role, filing a series of legal briefs urging Judge Leon, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002, to shut down the lawsuit. Because Bo has not responded in court to the allegations, the Bush administration is the only party fighting the suit. Civil cases filed against alleged foreign torturers are infrequent, but it is not uncommon for the U.S. government to oppose such legal actions.

Tightening the Noose

Falun Gong, an offshoot of Buddhism and Taoism, was officially banned by the Chinese government in 1999, along with certain Protestant and Catholic groups. The government set up a special security bureau to enforce the ban.

The State Department—which monitors religious freedoms worldwide—has for years expressed particular concern over China’s repression of “unauthorized” religions. Its 2007 International Religious Freedom Report is strewn with torture references, including “beatings with fists, sticks and electric batons … cigarette burns … and submersions in water or sewage.” The report cites “credible” reports from Falun Gong adherents in the United States who claim that more than 100,000 practitioners have been detained since 1999 and that many “have been subjected to excessive force, abuse, rape, detention, and torture, and that some of [the group’s] members, including children, have died in custody.”

According to Scott Flipse, the East Asia program director at the State Department’s Commission of International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan monitoring arm, the abuse is not limited to the Falun Gong.

“It is a deteriorating situation for many religious communities. They [the Chinese] are targeting unregistered Protestants, unregistered Catholics and others,” said Flipse.

Upsetting Foreign Relations

The administration’s arguments against the Bo suit are familiar refrains among critics of the Torture Victim Protection Act and similar laws used to penalize alleged foreign torturers. They argue that plaintiffs and judges fail to grasp the nuances of foreign relations and may in fact undo diplomatic strides gained in private negotiations.

“I think you can condemn a country’s practices and use a variety of tools to induce them to improve and still be concerned that you don’t want these ad hoc private-party lawsuits being the vehicle for conducting our foreign relations,” said Curtis A. Bradley, a visiting law professor at Harvard who in 2004 worked in the State Department’s legal advisory office.

But some legal specialists said diplomatic and political concerns appear to be distorting the Bush administration’s judgment in this case.

Jacques deLisle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on Chinese and international law, said if the case proceeded, it would be unlikely to impact trade or other relations with the Chinese. “The level of outrage that gets cranked out, I think, is somewhat disingenuous,” he said. “It is possible [for the Bush administration] to explain to China’s government that we do believe in letting these laws on the books operate and letting these litigants have their day in court.”

Bo’s Alleged Role

The plaintiffs in the Bo case—three of whom are referred to by pseudonyms for fear of retaliation against relatives still in China—contend that as governor, Bo maintained strict control over the persecution of Falun Gong. The complaint alleges that he fired and prosecuted other government officials who refused to execute his Falun Gong policies, which, according to China experts, are often carried out by provincial officials.

“There has been a lot of evidence pointing to the provincial government as overseeing these abuses,” said one State Department Asia policy officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive diplomatic matters.

The plaintiff named is 47-year-old Falun Gong member Li Weixum. She claimed she was beaten with a steel pipe and hung by handcuffs around her wrists until she bled. Another member, arrested with Li, said her head and face were covered with plastic wrap until she fainted. The action was repeated when she regained consciousness.

The Falun Gong was formally outlawed by the Chinese government in 1999, along with other religious groups determined to be illegal “cults.” Several Christian groups were included on the list and, according to human rights monitors, are now frequent targets of religious enforcement units known as “6-10 Offices,” named for the month and day in 1999 that the policy went into effect. Members of outlawed religious groups can be sentenced to from three to seven years in work camps that the Chinese government calls “re-education-through-labor” facilities.

A Global Campaign

The Falun Gong has filed more than 50 human rights lawsuits around the world, seeking damages from Chinese government agencies and officials. Only a handful of suits has been successful. Last fall, an Australian court ruled in favor of Falun Gong members in a torture claim filed against Bo Xilai.

Human rights groups, such as Human Rights USA—the group that is representing the Bo case plaintiffs in U.S. courts—are increasingly pursuing alleged human rights abusers in civil arenas, using laws like the Torture Victim Protection Act and the Alien Tort Statute, a controversial law enacted in 1789.

“The [Alien Tort Statute] became an effort by human rights activists to incorporate all sorts of ideas from international law into the law of the U.S.,” said Richard A. Samp, chief counsel at the Washington Legal Foundation, a public-interest law firm and free-enterprise think tank. “Ninety-nine percent of [the cases] I think are frivolous.”

But foreign officials have begun to accept U.S. jurisdiction in such cases. In 2006, the ruler and deputy ruler of Dubai hired the law firm DLA Piper when they were accused of trafficking boys to be used as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates. The case—filed in federal court in Florida—was eventually dismissed. A similar suit is ongoing in Kentucky.

In another case, the then-prime minister of Cambodia hired an American law firm to defend against allegations of human rights abuses in a lawsuit filed in New York.

A ‘Special’ Immunity

The Bo suit in the end may not hinge on foreign policy implications, but on whether Bo is immune from litigation filed in U.S. courts. He was served with the civil complaint while visiting the U.S. on official government business, as part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in 2004.

Heads of state and diplomats are by law immune from most criminal and civil complaints, but international laws are less clear when it comes to lower-level government officials like cabinet members.

In a similar case in 2004, a federal judge in the Northern District of California ruled that two Chinese officials—the then-mayor of Beijing and the then-deputy governor of Liaoning province—were not immune from torture suits. The judge, Edward M. Chen, issued a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, practitioners of Falun Gong, but did not award any damages. The former Beijing mayor, Liu Qi, is now president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympics.

In the Bo case, the Justice Department is claiming Bo cannot be sued because of what it calls “special missions immunity,” part of a treaty the U.S. has never signed. But the Bush administration says such immunity is legitimate under customary international law, and that the president can decide when to invoke the rule. “Such a determination has been made in this case with respect to Minister Bo,” according to legal filings. “The United States must be able to host foreign officials without the prospect that they may be served with process in a civil suit.” The government also claims it “could expose U.S. officials visiting other countries to suits arising from their performance of official U.S. government functions.”

Human rights groups, however, argue that the U.S. government is reinforcing human rights abuses by maintaining positive relationships with alleged torturers.

“High-level officials from foreign governments who are committing human rights abuses should be very fearful of entering this country, or any other country,” said Morton Sklar, executive director of Human Rights USA.

Judge Leon has been deliberating over the Bo case since last June, and by law it is his choice whether to defer to the views of the Bush administration and dismiss the suit. A spokeswoman for Judge Leon would not say when he plans to make a decision.

The State Department’s legal advisory office would not comment on the record for this article, instead pointing to its arguments already filed in court.

China experts say it is unlikely Bo will ever be questioned in the affair.

“I don’t think any Chinese government official would even spend time in hiring lawyers, or coming to America to give a deposition or show up in court,” said Siva Yam, president of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce. “If they do, they will lower their status.”

James Sandler is a reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, Sandler was part of the New York Times team awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Shahien Nasiripour, an intern at CIR, contributed reporting for this story. CIR is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism since 1977.

One of China's most powerful political figures is facing allegations in a U.S. court that he directed a torture campaign against religious followers. The Bush administration is trying to get the case thrown out. Bo Xilai, the son of one of modern China's most influential leaders, has thus far led a life of privilege and entitlement. It's also been marked by controversy.

Bo Xilai, 58, is the eldest son of Bo Yibo, one of the so-called Eight Immortals, Communist Party leaders and revolutionaries who helped usher in China's booming market-oriented economy. Bo Yibo was a friend of former Chairman Mao Zedong and an influential adviser to former Chinese leaders Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin—relationships that have no doubt helped fuel Bo Xilai's rise.

Though nepotism is frowned upon in China's political establishment (the offspring of party leaders are often derided as "princelings"), it hasn't derailed Bo Xilai, analysts say. He was mayor of the city of Dalian in the 1990s, governor of Liaoning Province thereafter and the country's trade minister from 2004 to 2007. Today he's the top official in one of China's most populous cities, Chongqing, and a member of the country's ruling Politburo.

Bo turned Dalian, formerly a sleepy backwater, into an economic powerhouse. He was responsible for "transforming the center of Dalian, with architectural styles reminiscent of the Mediterranean and Sweden, making it a unique city in China," according to a report on the website for the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang. "Bo's reputation as an effective and forward-thinking politician is based on his role in Dalian's transformation."

His success in Dalian earned him a promotion to the governor's post in Liaoning. His subsequent reforms there helped the province become one of China's largest industrial centers. The resulting economic boom, though, came against the backdrop of controversy.

Bo was appointed governor in the wake of a political corruption scandal in the province and, according to published reports, is said to be responsible for the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist. Investigative reporter Jiang Weiping wrote that Bo covered up corruption among friends and relatives while mayor of Dalian. Jiang was accused of revealing state secrets and, through his stories, inciting subversion. He served five years in prison and was freed in January 2006. The Bush Administration had pressed for his release.

In 2004, Bo was appointed minister of commerce, one of the country's most visible and prestigious posts. China's trade with the U.S. has since increased 67 percent, and China recently passed the U.S. as the world's second-largest exporter with $1.2 trillion in goods in 2007, according to the World Trade Organization.

Late last year, Bo left the Commerce Ministry and was appointed Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, said to be the world's fastest-growing urban center and considered to be China's next boomtown (following the likes of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen). He also was promoted to China's powerful Politburo, the country's top decision-making body. Chongqing, a provincial-level municipality of 32 million people, has been referred to as "China's Chicago" because, like Chicago once was, it is "a gateway to vast and largely undeveloped lands to its west, a hub where the traffic of roads, rail lines and waterways converged, and a center for business where ambition eviscerated risk."

Bo is widely considered to be a rising star. He's comfortable with the media and, given his success as China's trade minister, equally comfortable with foreign officials and business leaders. There are rumors that he could one day become Premier. It remains to be seen whether this latest controversy will impede his ascent up China's political hierarchy.

The Nuclear Renaissance Starts Here, says the bright sales brochure for Westinghouse Electric Corporation's newest nuclear reactor, the AP1000.

The slogan is apt: In December 2006, the Chinese government awarded Westinghouse what was then the most lucrative contract in the history of commercial nuclear energy. The fast-growing, energy-hungry country would pay between $5and $8 billion for four AP1000 reactors. It was China's first step toward making good on its pledge to quadruple nuclear power production by 2020.

Thanks to climbing oil prices and concern about carbon emissions' contribution to global warming, China is not alone in looking to boost nuclear power production. Bob Pierce, the global business development manager for the AP1000, said his company has fielded inquiries about the reactor from more than 40 countries. "The renaissance," he says, "is bringing lots of new players into the marketplace."

But nonproliferation experts say that reviving the global nuclear energy industry presents serious security risks that, left unaddressed, far outweigh cuts in carbon emissions.

Worldwide, 439 nuclear reactors are currently producing power. Nuclear energy analyst Alan McDonald of the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that by the year 2030, there will be between 75 and 350 more reactors on line. That includes expansions of existing capacity in countries such as Japan, India and the United Kingdom, and countries entirely new to the technology, including Yemen, Indonesia and Egypt.

The additional reactors aren't themselves a problem, says Laura Holgate, who previously managed a Department of Defense program to destroy excess nuclear weapons in Russia, and now serves as vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a DC-based nongovernmental organization. "Modern power plants don't have material on site that can be used for a nuclear weapon directly."

But each one of those new power plants will need a steady supply of low-enriched uranium to fuel the nuclear reactors. And uranium enrichment is at the heart of the basic atomic dilemma that has plagued nuclear energy since its start: The very same facility that produces low-enriched fuel for a power plant can be used to produce highly-enriched fuel for a bomb.

"No one has figured out a way to break the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons," says David Albright, physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC. "The bomb and nuclear power are joined at the hip."

Straight out of the earth, raw uranium is composed almost entirely of a relatively heavy isotope called U-238. A nuclear reaction requires a higher proportion of U-235, and increasing the proportion of these light atoms is what's called enrichment. There are several ways to do it, including gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuges.

Like those lingering networks left behind in South Africa, the knowledge and connections that Khan assembled have not gone away. Building an enrichment plant is complicated and expensive, and requires specialized parts that are subject to multilateral export controls. But once up and running, the same technology that increases the concentration of U-235 atoms from less than one percent to five percent of the total mass—which is what's needed to fuel a power plant—can be used to increase the concentration to 90 percent, which is what's needed for a bomb.

"If there is a nuclear renaissance," says Albright, "then the proliferation risk will go up, because so often countries hide their nuclear ambitions within civil programs."

The fear is that countries can use nuclear power programs as an excuse to build enrichment plants, saying they need a reliable source of nuclear fuel—and then can use the enrichment plants to create weapons-grade uranium.

Currently, most countries that use nuclear fuel buy it, rather than manufacturing their own. Only six nations—the United States, Russia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—manufacture and sell enriched uranium on the global market.

But some new entrants to nuclear power are concerned that their access to enriched uranium fuel could be shut off due to political tensions.

"In ten years they could say, 'We need our own enrichment abilities,'" says author and nuclear analyst Joseph Cirincione.

Some countries, such as Iran, are already insisting on developing their own enrichment programs. Brazil and Argentina recently announced plans to set up a joint company to enrich uranium.

To prevent more countries from building their own plants, several national governments and nongovernmental organizations are trying to reassure countries that use nuclear power that they can get a steady supply of fuel without enriching it themselves.

They're taking steps toward creating a multinational fuel cycle—something like an international gas station.

Russia is building an international nuclear fuel depot on its border with Kazakhstan, and last year the US Congress matched a $50 million donation by Warren Buffett to help pay for a multilateral fuel bank. Most recently, in February 2008, German officials proposed that the IAEA oversee an enrichment plant and fuel bank that would be built on international soil.

"There has to be some way for countries to feel confident about their supply of low enriched uranium," says Dr. Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist and professor at Princeton who received the MacArthur Award in 1993 for his work on arms control.

The problem is that countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could skip the fuel bank and build their own enrichment plants, a right that's guaranteed to countries party to the Nonproliferation Treaty. It's even legal to enrich uranium to 90 percent or above, points out Tariq Rauf, head of Verifications and Security Policy Coordination for the IAEA—"but it has to be used only for a peaceful purpose."

Detecting whether uranium is being enriched for a peaceful purpose—to fuel a research reactor or a power plant—or for a bomb has been the central challenge since Dwight Eisenhower launched the "Atoms for Peace" initiative. It lies at the core of the current tension with Iran, whose claims about developing nuclear energy run counter to Bush administration claims that the country's ultimate aim is to build bombs.

Ideally, all enrichment facilities would be under the control of a multinational agency like the IAEA, says Rauf. "That way, if a country has its own facilities, we can ask legitimate questions why," he says. "But we are still many years away from that situation."