In early 2009, human rights organisations criticised America's new Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for stating that the US government could not allow disagreements over human rights to interfere with Sino-American co-operation in economic, climate and security crises. Human Rights Watch argued that progress on those crises must be seen as inseparable from progress in freedoms of expression and protections against arbitrary punishment for the Chinese people. Otherwise, the US would continue to succumb to China's diplomatic strategy of 'segregating human rights issues into a dead-end 'dialogue of the deaf'.'
The just-concluded US-China summit demonstrated how much more skilful the Obama administration has become in pacifying human rights critics without allowing their cause to interfere with Sino-American co-operation in other important matters. Pre-summit activities featured an impressive speech by Clinton that emphasised human rights. To show his own sincerity, President Barack Obama met some human rights advocates.
All the summit activities - the White House dinners, the joint statement, Obama's public remarks, the joint press conference, President Hu Jintao's visit to Congress and his appearances before business leaders and opinion-makers - offered opportunities to reflect American concern for human rights as well as other problems.
Yet was anything substantial accomplished for human rights? In other respects, the summit was successful for both Beijing and Washington. It restored a positive tone to relations after a year of worrisome tensions, announced many useful agreements, and burnished the standing of each president at home and abroad. But as the press conference's first questioner asked Obama, can we have any confidence that, as a result of this visit, China's practice of 'using censorship and force to repress its people' will change?
The joint statement, like that issued during Obama's 2009 China visit, calls for another round of the 'on again, off again' US-China human rights dialogue and also for renewal of the legal experts' dialogue. This time, however, a specific time frame is provided. The former is to take place before the next strategic and economic dialogue, scheduled for May; the latter, even earlier.
The problem, of course, is whether these official meetings will prove worthwhile. Although bilateral dialogue such as this enables Western governments to give their constituents the impression that they are pressing China on rights, by and large the dialogue has not proved significant. It is too occasional, brief and formal to permit more than stilted discussion, and few who take part have detailed knowledge of Chinese realities. Moreover, the ranking Communist Party and police officials who control China's legal system and preside over day-to-day repression do not participate.
Such official dialogue, like the summits that announce it, comes and goes, but the Chinese people's freedoms of speech, association, assembly and religion continue to be ruthlessly suppressed, and lawless beatings, arbitrary detentions, unlawful searches, obscene tortures, coerced confessions and unfair trials prevail nationwide, despite the persistent efforts of China's many able law reformers.
