China: John Kamm’s List

Norwegian version

Since the death of former Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976, China has changed almost beyond recognition. Social and economic reforms have brought prosperity to many Chinese and have lifted still more out of poverty. But the Chinese have not been granted freedom of expression, political reform remains taboo, and the Communist Party continues to stand above all else in China, including the law.

As Amnesty has reported, China continues to implement the death penalty on a massive scale, with more than 4,000 death sentences and nearly 2,500 executions carried out in China in 2001. China continues to imprison those citizens who step beyond political and cultural boundaries, and to all forms of independent labor organization are forbidden. Western governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private individuals have developed an array of tactics to try to influence and change this situation. Governments - including that of Norway - rely on the ongoing bilateral dialogue program to make their views known; NGOs monitor the situation, encourage their members’ governments to act, and develop their own campaigns on behalf of individual prisoners; and a few private citizens also devote their lives to fighting for the rights of other individuals. John Kamm is one of them, and has won two prizes for his efforts.

Speaking out

It began in 1990, the year after the Tiananmen massacre. John Kamm worked as a vice president of Occidental Chemical Company, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, in Hong Kong, and was president of the Hong Kong chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce, where he supported the extension of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to China. At the time businessmen were afraid of mentioning China and human rights in the same breath, fearing that it would have negative consequences for their business.

As Kamm explains it, during a toast in his honour at a gathering of Chinese officials and American businessmen in Hong Kong, he suddenly got the idea to use his response to the toast to ask the senior Chinese official to release a political prisoner Kamm had read about in the newspaper that morning. The Chinese official grew angry, and the Chamber of Commerce later formally dissociated itself from participating in non-commercial activities. But one month after the incident, the prisoner was released.

Kamm founded his own consulting business in 1991, to allow more time for his human rights activities. In 1999 he established The Dui Hua Foundation (Dui Hua means ‘dialogue’ in Chinese), and and now divides his time between business consulting and human rights campaigning. Since 1990 about 275 former political prisoners have been released or received better treatment while in prison as a direct or indirect result of his getting involved in their cases. Just in the past year Kamm has been involved in obtaining the release of several high-profile political prisoners, among them Ngawang Choephal, Ngawang Sangdrol, and Xu Wenli.

Kamm focuses most of his work on finding and getting involved in those cases where prisoners are not well-known outside of China (and are often unknown inside the country). By conducting research in publicly available sources, Kamm and The Duihua Foundation have unearthed the names of more than 2,500 political prisoners and brought about 600 of the names to the attention of the Chinese authorities.

Kamm’s approach is always roughly the same. When a case comes to his attention, he raises it with high-level Chinese officials, and then continues to bring it up. At the very least this induces officials to dispatch an inquiry, to demonstrate to local officials that someone is interested, thereby immediately increasing a prisoner’s status. In the long run this can lead to prisoner releases.

In addition Kamm puts individual cases in a larger political context, something that has been very effective. "China wants to develop good relations with the US, and to the extent that the US has strong allies, China will also do things to develop relations with them," explains Kamm.

The Chinese in turn view Kamm as a dialogue partner rather than an antagonist, someone who can help them achieve recognition and smooth their path with the US, and are therefore willing to help him in this role.

Kamm says three things underpin his approach, and his success: "A detailed knowledge of the case, an approach that links human rights concessions to the big picture of US-China relations, and most important of all, persistence."

The story of the release of political prisoner Xu Wenli on Christmas Eve, 2002, is a typical example.

Free Xu Wenli

John Kamm participated in efforts to gain Xu Wenli’s release from prison beginning in 1992, and was heavily involved in the discussions that lead up to his previous release from prison in May 1993. Xu’s release in the spring of 1993 took place against the backdrop of the then-annual debate in the US Congress over the renewal of MFN trading status for China. Kamm believes that the Chinese government released Xu in May 1993 to avoid having conditions placed on its MFN status.

President Clinton’s visit to China in the summer of 1998 raised hopes in the West of a more open and tolerant China. Dissidents like Xu Wenli amd Wang Yuncai took heart at the atmosphere created by the Clinton visit, and founded the China Democracy Party. But by November 1998 both were in prison, and Xu again became an important issue in US-China relations. John Kamm again took up Xu’s case with high-level Chinese officials at the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and at Xu’s prison, but to no avail, as officials maintained a hard line on his case.

After the Bush administration took office in January 2001, US-China relations fell to a low point. But in the wake of September 11th the Chinese government saw an opportunity to use the changed landscape of international relations to improve its relationship with the US. Kamm recommended new human rights concessions.

Kamm says that a crucial link in the release of Xu Wenli is the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs with responsibility for the US, Li Zhaoxing, formerly Ambassador to Washington and a leading advisor to senior leaders on US affairs. In his role as ambassador, Li had received countless letters on human rights issues from US government officials and private citizens, and clearly understood the importance of human rights for the US. As a result, Li and others advised senior leaders to begin releasing political prisoners. In this context, Kamm says, it was no longer a question of whether prisoners would be released, but which.

Kamm encouraged the US Ambassador to Beijing, Clark Randt, to begin mentioning individual prisoners’ cases in his public addresses. And in early October 2002, as Jiang Zemin was preparing to go to the US for his summit with President Bush, Kamm was in Beijing, letting officials know that releasing Xu Wenli - or advising that he would soon be released - would greatly improve Jiang’s visit. As Kamm tells it, he and Ambassador Randt were told that Xu would be released before the end of the year, but he applied pressure to officials on Xu’s behalf until Kamm was able to negotiate the details of his release and he was put on a plane to the US in late December.

The business community hesitates

Despite his considerable success in getting prisoners like Xu Wenli released, Kamm admits that his relationship with the US business community could be improved. He believes that most businessmen hesitate to get involved in human rights activism in China most of all because they fear that it will hurt their business, although some may also feel they lack sufficient knowledge to contribute.

So he bases his outreach activities within the business community on two principles. He continues to run his consulting business, underscoring his argument that it is possible to have a successful China-oriented business while engaging in human rights activism. And he focuses on reaching out to the next generation of business school students and young executives: "I tell them, you can be effective, active in the area of human rights, without hurting your business."

Kamm has worked with Amnesty for more than ten years, and says that in his view the organization is "the most effective worldwide in terms of a mass movement NGO that focuses on promoting human rights." When asked about Amnesty’s focus on massive letter-writing campaigns, Kamm replies that "letter-writing is very important, at all levels: national, provincial, embassies, prisons ... The Chinese government has said that letters make a difference." Kamm has seen evidence that prisoners who are asked or written about receive better treatment and shorter sentences, and is convinced that in making decisions about which prisoners to release or parole, the Chinese government weighs the number of letters received per prisoner.

Kamm praises the Norwegian government’s recent involvement in Chinese human rights issues, through its ongoing bilateral dialogue with China (where Norway has raised individual prisoners’ cases) and its efforts to combat the use of the death penalty. Kamm says "Norway has a special role to play in this area. Unlike the US, it has substantial moral authority to push the Chinese on specific death penalty cases."

Kamm believes it is important for everyone involved in human rights issues in China to keep pushing for well-informed dialogue, but never to lose sight of the big picture of where concessions and progress might be gained.

He quotes the former US senator, Bill Bradley, as saying, "China is a large developing country. It’s trying to find its place in the world. The trick is to find out what they want, and how much they’re willing to do to get it".

And John Kamm has mastered that art.

The author of this article is known to AI Norway but prefers to be anonymous

• Read more about John Kamm on The Dui Hua Foundation’s website: http://www.duihua.org/
• Read Amnesty's documents on China