Human rights and the Obama visit

Why Is Human Rights So Contentious?

The United States has a tradition of pressing other states, especially communist ones, about their restrictions on citizens' political, legal and religious rights. Communist Party-ruled China has been a focus of such criticism from the White House, Congress and U.S. organizations, especially since 1989 when the Chinese army crushed student-led demonstrations for democracy centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In the United States, China's rights record can galvanize conservatives and liberals, religious groups, lawyers, and trade unionists, making for potent coalitions.

China has long rejected U.S. criticism as meddling and Cold War-style subversion. It has also honed counter-arguments: that the United States is hypocritical, that China is committed to its own version of human rights, and that providing basic subsistence and economic development takes priority over political rights.

The resulting friction can be volatile because U.S. criticisms can overlap with worries about Chinese trade policies, mutual distrust over military intentions, and Chinese fears Washington is bent on overturning Communist Party rule.

How Will Obama Approach Human Rights?

Human rights have long jostled with other issues for attention when U.S. presidents meet their Chinese counterparts. With China's growing economic and diplomatic clout, the bilateral agenda has even become more crowded, and some critics have said the rights issue has been neglected under Obama. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became a target for such criticism in February, after she said discussing China's human rights should not interfere with cooperating over the financial crisis, climate change and security threats.

Obama told Reuters in an interview this week that human rights issues remain important in dealings with China. The U.S. National Security Council's senior director for East Asian affairs, Jeffrey Bader, told reporters that in China Obama could raise “freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of religion, rule of law and, certainly, Tibet.” But the Obama administration has avoided some gestures likely to irk China.

The president has held off from meeting the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, until after his Beijing summit.

What Has Changed?

The most important change is not how Obama handles the issue, but Beijing's growing international assertiveness and reluctance to make concessions to Washington, beleaguered by economic woes. In 1997, the well-known Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng was released from jail and sent into exile in the United States after lobbying from President Bill Clinton, who had hosted the then Chinese President Jiang Zemin on a visit weeks before. Jiang's successor, Hu Jintao, has resisted making such releases a part of diplomacy and such steps appear unlikely during Obama's visit or after.

Human Rights As A Diplomatic Issue?

The key is what happens in China. If unrest flares in Tibet or Xinjiang, both regions where ethnic discontent is high, or if Chinese rights activists mount bigger challenges to the Communist Party, the rights issue may draw greater pressure and attention.

An economic slump or elite political feuding could embolden domestic challenges, pushing rights up the diplomatic agenda.

For now, at least, Chinese authorities have covered restive regions in heavy security, and dissidents and rights activists face smothering surveillance and detention.

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