We’re Not Responsible for Our Buyers’ Behavior, Chinese Defense Contractor Says - China Real Time Report - WSJ
- September 26, 2014, 1:25 PM HKT
We’re Not Responsible for Our Buyers’ Behavior, Chinese Defense Contractor Says
Zimbabwean police, pictured here assaulting demonstrators in July 2007, have been accused often of human-rights violations.
Associated Press
If law-enforcement gear is wrongfully wielded as tools of torture, then the end users should take the rap.
So says a major Chinese defense contractor accused by a human-rights group of selling products used to commit abuses. Poly Technologies—a subsidiary of China Poly Group, a Beijing-based conglomerate with interests ranging from arms to resources, property to art auctions—was among several Chinese companies accused this week by Amnesty International of exporting policing such wares to countries with poor human-rights records, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia.
According to the U.K.-based group, more than 130 Chinese firms were producing and trading law-enforcement kit as of early this year, many of them selling products that mainly have legitimate policing uses but also tools that activists say are “intrinsically cruel”—including spiked batons, electric-shock weapons and mechanical restraints like weighted legcuffs, thumbcuffs and restraint chairs.
Amnesty also accused the Chinese government of maintaining lax export controls, allowing companies to ship law-enforcement tools to countries where domestic-security services have been accused of rights abuses.
In response to queries from The Wall Street Journal, Poly Technologies said Friday that the Chinese government maintains strict control over the export of law-enforcement equipment while the company itself has internal controls — both aimed at preventing misuse.
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“Poly Technologies acts merely as a trading agent, not an equipment manufacturer… Our influence over equipment manufacturers and end users is limited,” said the company, whose website states it has links with more than 100 countries. “If end users do commit rights abuses in the course of using the equipment, it is they who bear responsibility.”
“To date, there hasn’t been any known instance of misuse or human-rights violations involving law-enforcement gear exported by Poly Technologies,” it added.
According to Amnesty, Poly Technologies sold riot-control gear in 2011 to Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the equipment was likely used during crackdowns on dissent. The Chinese company, which produces tools including electric-stun guns, spiked shields and mechanical restraints, didn’t comment on Amnesty’s claims about these two deals.
China’s Commerce Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said this week she doubted the authenticity of Amnesty’s claims, describing the rights group as being “always biased against China.”