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 China and US fail to set timetable for talks on human rights
China and America's on-off dialogue on human rights faces postponement again amid discord between the two powers over internet censorship.
Talks were meant to take place last year, but a date was never set.
The two countries agreed in November, during Barack Obama's visit to China, that they would resume discussions by the end of February at the latest. This now looks unlikely and it is thought the US is suggesting dates in late March.
"We are still continuing to work with the Chinese to schedule," said a state department official. "Human rights dialogue is a priority for the US."
Although critics complain the dialogue has achieved little, advocates say it is an opportunity to raise important issues and individual cases of concern directly.
Some observers believe US officials could be tarrying, fearing that if they do not get a substantive agenda for the talks China could say it is engaging on human rights – but the US could get little in return.
Human rights groups are concerned about last year's crackdown on lawyers in China, internet censorship, highlighted by the Google case, and the long sentence given to the dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Obama is also expected to meet the Dalai Lama soon. Although his predecessors met the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader too, Chinese displeasure could create another obstacle.
The last human rights meeting, in May 2008, followed a four-year hiatus. Beijing announced it was suspending participation in 2004 after the US sponsored a resolution at the UN human rights commission condemning China's record.
State department briefing notes say the US declined to schedule another round of talks because there had been no progress on commitments China made in 2002. "The ambassador mentioned it when he first arrived here in August," said Susan Stevenson, of the US embassy in Beijing, confirming that human rights dialogue was "a priority".
The Chinese foreign ministry says China is willing to continue the human rights dialogue with the US "on the basis of equality and mutual respect". Last September, asked by the US news broadcaster NPR what America was doing and could do to put pressure on China over human rights issues, the US ambassador, Jon Huntsman, replied: "[Making that dialogue] … a systemic part of our overall bilateral dialogue is a very important thing to be doing."
But Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said: "The dialogue has suffered enormously from a lack of clear benchmarks and deliverable human rights goals and has often been hijacked by political considerations.
"The only thing that happens if the dialogue goes ahead as it has in the past … is that the US government has made it incredibly easy for China to check the 'human rights' box for the year. That is wildly insufficient."The People's Daily warned today that the internet row was harming broader bilateral relations, also strained by trade disputes and US arms sales to Taiwan.
But Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said the last year had seen a "hard-won" trend of stable development in relations, thanks to the efforts of both sides.
China called off its human rights dialogue with the UK, which was due to take place in Beijing this month, shortly after Britain's criticism of the execution of Akmal Shaikh, a British drug smuggler said to have had serious mental health problems. It is thought that other issues probably underlay the decision.
But Fu Ying, China's outgoing ambassador to the UK, told Radio 4 today that she did not think there was "any serious damage" to relations following the Shaikh case. "It shows our relationship is strong enough to manage our differences," she said.
(2010/01/27 - guardian.co.uk ) |
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