Bermuda took centre stage by accident after US authorities captured a ship loaded with illegal immigrants from China bound for a new life in America.

Government's humanitarian decision to allow safe harbour for the crippled cargo ship focussed the attention of the world on the Island -- and on conditions inside China.

US authorities believe the 83 migrants to be economic refugees rather than political ones and are set to return them to the People's Republic of China.

But the line between politics and economics for people who risked their lives on a filthy rust-bucket for nearly four months and forked out as much as $30,000 dollars to the Chinese Mafia -- Triads -- for the privilege is an academic nicety they could be forgiven for not quite grasping.

The US Justice Department says previous experience with illegal immigrants from China is that they will face a fine on their return and be sent back home.

But a recent article in Amnesty International's Amnesty magazine makes the point that "No-one is safe in China.'' For added to the grinding poverty the boatload of desperate people hoped to escape is a brutal crackdown on crime which has seen thousands of human rights violations -- and three times as many executions in 1995 than the rest of the world put together.

Ironically, much of the state terror is in the name of economic reform -- a bid to crank up China's industry to Western standards.

But the Communist authorities are determined that economic reform will not be matched by any loosening up of political and religious repression.

The Amnesty article claims that China's economic potential for Western investors has led the rest of the world to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government's declaration of war against its own people.

It says: "Despite its phenomenal economic advance in recent years, the People's Republic of China remains a thoroughly repressive society, intolerant of any form of dissent.

"Perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that amid China's vastness and diversity -- 1.2 billion people, more than 50 ethnic groups and dozens of languages -- no-one is safe.'' And Amnesty claims torture is endemic and even pregnancy is politicised -- local Communist officials force women into abortion or sterilisation in the name of a ruthless birth control policy.

Amnesty says more than 100,000 people are held in "re-education through labour'' camps -- the Chinese gulags.

Amnesty has detailed long hours of hard labour, poor food and ill-treatment within the camps, designed for those who "resist reform''.

The Chinese government shocked the world seven years when the tanks rolled into a pro-reform demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Thousands died, either during the break-up of the demonstrations or by torture and execution afterwards.

But Amnesty reports: "The Chinese government seeks to evade accountability for its human rights record -- arguing that human rights are each country's own business and cannot be examined in isolation from a country's historical and cultural background.

"But these factors do not alter the fundamental right of every human being not to be tortured, killed or arbitrarily detained. In the context of such serious and widespread abuses Beijing's arguments are just a distraction.''