China Labour Bulletin Director Han Dongfang is quoted in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher
28 October 2013
Ron Rupke
Students at four Canadian universities and a Christian high school near Toronto were treated to a visit by a leading Chinese labour advocate during the last week of September 2013. Han Dongfang’s whirlwind tour of Canada came courtesy of the Christian Labour Association of Canada and the newly-constituted CLAC Foundation.
According to CLAC representative John Taekema, the CLAC arranged Dongfang’s speaking tour to help promote the CLAC Foundation, which was founded in December 2012. CLAC itself celebrates its 61st anniversary this year.
“We wanted to catch the interest of some younger folks,” Taekema explained during a telephone interview on September 29. “CLAC has always had the support of many members who are not represented in a workplace. For quite a while we have used the dues paid by these Solidarity members to support struggling labour movements in developing countries. Now the CLAC Foundation, an organization with charitable status, will extend this solidarity work internationally and within Canada. And, since most of our solidarity members are getting older, we want to connect with a younger generation, to show them this important work.”
In 2006, CLAC officials attending a Human Rights and Democracy conference in Montreal first met Han Dongfong, founder of a Hong Kong based Chinese Non-Governmental Organization called the China Labour Bulletin. Shortly after that meeting in Montreal, CLAC decided to help fund Dongfang’s work as part of CLAC’s international solidarity program.
“Many of Dongfang’s ideas are shared by the CLAC,” says John Taekema. “His concept of freedom of association, the need for respect and cooperation in the workplace and working within existing structures to achieve justice – these all resonate with CLAC.” Dongfang’s strong command of the English language and his amazing personal story made him an obvious choice as a speaker for the CLAC Foundation.
Exclusive interview
I had a chance to interview Han Dongfang at the home of Wybe and Jean Bylsma in Cobourg on September 22, just before his short Canadian speaking tour. Bylsma, a long-time CLAC solidarity member who has a special interest in China, claims to be the person who first brought Dongfang and his China Labour Bulletin to the attention of CLAC staff. During a leisurely social visit and luncheon, Dongfang spoke about his journey from the Tiananmen Square protest in May 1989, to prison and near death, to his work as labour reformer and advocate today.
According to Dongfang, the Tiananmen Square protest began on April 15, 1989 as a gathering of several hundred people. It was an exciting time as the mostly young people debated, protested, shouted and demonstrated. On May 19, the Chinese government declared martial law, apparently determined to quash the protest. At the time, Han Dongfang, a 26-year-old electrician working for the state railway, had little interest in the events at Tiananmen, but his wife urged him to go to the square and see what was going on. He visited the protest on May 21 and got caught up in a heated discussion with a group trying to set up a worker’s organization to protect students from a possible army crackdown. Dongfang struck up a conversation with a fellow protester credentialed with a PhD in law, who explained that the Tiananmen protesters had the legal right to peaceful assembly under the Chinese constitution.
The worker’s group decided they needed leaders, and by consensus decided that anyone interested in leading should nominate himself and explain why he should be chosen. Dongfang was one of eight people to step forward. He said that he believed the protest was perfectly legal, and that he was not afraid to state his name and his role. He added, “If what we are doing here will lead to prison, I will not have to be arrested – I will walk in on my own.” His confident words convinced the audience, who showed their approval of five leadership hopefuls by loud applause. The five met together and divided responsibility among them. Dongfang was chosen to be the group spokesman. On June 4, 1989 the Chinese military entered Tiananmen Square in a column of tanks, and massacred many of the protesters assembled there. Ten days later, the government released a list of wanted protest leaders. Dongfang recalls, “My name was on the list, and my appearance was on the poster. I had to decide whether to run and hide, or to keep my word and walk in to be arrested.”
The consequences of self surrender
Dongfang recalls his fateful decision to enter the Beijing Public Security Bureau headquarters, just 800 metres away from Tiananmen Square, on June 14, 1989. “I told the officers there who I was, and why I was there. They were confused, didn’t know what to do with me. Then a public official came out from a back office and invited me in for a cup of tea.”
So began 22 months of interrogation and detention without formal charges or trial. Dongfang’s refusal to discuss the words or actions of fellow protesters angered officials, who ordered him placed in a “special” cell with 24 prisoners ill with various infectious diseases. He was gravely sick and near death from tuberculosis when, to his surprise, he was released to a military hospital where he regained enough strength to sit up and speak. He later learned that his release was directly connected to a state visit by the American Secretary of State James Baker, who raised Dongfang’s name as a human rights concern. Still gravely ill, he was released on bail to go home with his wife in 1991. An American human rights organization took an interest in him, and a doctor sent to examine him confirmed a diagnosis of tuberculosis in one lung. The American Federation of Labor Organizations became aware of his situation, and raised the sum of $20,000 to bring him to America for treatment at Columbia Medical Centre. While preparing for surgery to have the remnants of his diseased lung removed, he was befriended by Christians, and was baptized as a new believer in July 1993. After successful surgery, he flew back to Hong Kong, and crossed the border into mainland China. Government officials arrested him at the hotel where he stayed overnight, however, and charged him with “violating the Chinese constitution internationally.” Over his strenuous objections, he was transported to Shen Zhen and ordered to cross the bridge back into Hong Kong. “I said, ‘no, this is my country, that is not my country.’” The police physically picked me up and dumped me on the other side of the line. The Hong Kong police held me there when I tried to walk back into China.”
Dissenter
So began Dongfang’s new life as a dissident Chinese labour leader. In 1994, he registered the China Labour Bulletin, promoting the idea of free trade unionism in his home country. He began to broadcast his ideas by hosting a talk show on Radio Free Asia, a station funded by the U.S. government. Over time, he took up the cause of various workers’ rights issues in his homeland, and worked to build good labour relations precedents by funding lawyers to defend cases that came to his attention. “In China we have wonderful labour laws, better than Canada’s – but no enforcement. After 1990 party leaders studied labour law in the west, and adopted many regulations from western social democracies. But the rule of law is an evolutionary process – it must be part of the people – you can’t escape the process.”
According to John Taekema, Han Dongfang met with students at Redeemer College in Ancaster, at King’s Collegiate in Oakville, at the University of Alberta and King’s College in Edmonton, and at the Vancouver Public Library with students from Simon Fraser University’s Institute of Humanities. “Wherever we went, student audiences were mesmerized by Han Dongfang’s story,” he reported. “And as for myself – my 11 days travelling with Dongfang has been one of my most interesting journeys ever.”
Ron Rupke worked as a CLAC representative in Ontario during the 1980s and 1990s. He now lives in Cobourg and works as a market gardener and freelance writer.