Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently concluded her first trip abroad, where she visited Japan, South Korea, China, and Indonesia. Going into the trip, she stated that human rights would be on the agenda with China:
"Human rights is a part of our agenda with the Chinese, as is climate change and clean energy and nuclear nonproliferation and dealing with the North Korean denuclearization challenge and the six-party talks," she said, according to a transcript of her remarks released by the State Department. "And that's why we want a comprehensive dialogue. We're not going to be shying away from talking about human rights issues, but we have a very broad agenda to deal with when it comes to China."
As it turns out, Secretary Clinton did not strongly emphasize human rights during her trip to China, where such concerns are most relevant. While this policy decision prompted criticism from a number of domestic advocates, it was the correct decision.
Sources of Criticism
The strongest criticisms of Clinton's trip came from liberals concerned that de-emphasizing human rights during a publicity tour would hinder progress towards global respect for human rights. (And to be clear, this was a publicity tour - the administration is reviewing policies in every imaginable area, just as George W. Bush did following the Bill Clinton era and Clinton did following the GHW Bush era. Hillary could not have been communicating details of new policies because, at this moment, there are none.) The Washington Post:
In fact, her comments understated the significance of what a secretary of state says about such matters, and how those statements might affect the lives of people fighting for freedom of expression, religious rights and other basic liberties in countries such as China.
The Boston Globe:
Clinton made another kind of gaffe when she said pressing China on human rights "can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis." Even if these were her priorities in talks behind closed doors with Chinese officials, her comment sent the wrong message to those officials, to Tibetans and Chinese democrats, and to human rights defenders in China.
Clinton's position has two potentially detrimental effects. It undermines the long-fought campaign for a comprehensive foreign policy, one recognizing the interdependence of human rights concerns with traditional strategic goals. And it ultimately fails civil society groups in China and those suffering human rights abuses.
Human rights activists in China are not fans outside of a Jonas Brothers concert. A wave or kind word from their role model, or the lack thereof, isn't the pinnacle of their existence. In between the handful of trips the American Secretary of State will take to China during her tenure, these brave men and women are fighting an existential battle against a dominant and extremely well-organized foe - the Chinese security forces. Those who choose this line of work in China are surely among humankind's most self-sacrificing - to act as though they require a few words here and there from visiting American officials to sustain themselves is to demean their bravery.
The Wise Choice
As I've argued elsewhere, international legitimacy depends on consistency. If you only emphasize human rights when vital interests aren't at stake, you're being hypocritical. Needless to say, this is a bad thing. As Anne Applebaum pointed out:
I also don't care what she says about human rights to the leaders of Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea, if those words will have no meaning in practice. Grandiloquent human rights speeches that amount to nothing have been a hallmark of American foreign policy since at least 1956, when we didn't come to the aid of Hungarians taking part in a rebellion we helped incite. Fifty years of broken promises is quite enough, and if we're abandoning that habit now, good riddance.
Amen to that. The less we sound like we preach human rights only when it's to our advantage (and we're not prepared to back it up) the better.
China cares about publicity. They don't cancel initiatives important to the U.S. when we sell arms to Taiwan, but when we announce that we're going to do so. That may be practical, so as to dissuade us from actually going through with the arms sales, but nonetheless, initiatives such as military-to-military exchanges are vital, and cannot be risked over words that won't be backed up in the case of Tiananmen v2.0.
Why It Was Smart
The U.S. has other issues to discuss with China than human rights, like, say, nuclear war. As a Council on Foreign Relations brief notes:
U.S. military planners clearly see the potential for China to develop as a "peer competitor." The U.S. Defense Department's 2008 report on China's military power says "much uncertainty surrounds China's future course, in particular in the area of its expanding military power and how that power might be used."
China could easily have taken offense over Clinton's theoretical criticisms of China's human rights policies and canceled military-to-military talks that were called "the best set of talks that I have ever been a part of" by an American official. Previous military talks were called off in response to (the announcement of) U.S. arms deals with Taiwan, but are now slated to resume. And right after Clinton left, the State Department issued a report which criticized China harshly over its human rights policies. Needless to say, the Chinese were not happy.
The United States needs China to cooperate on issues of vital importance, including North Korea, financing the federal budget deficit, and averting an inadvertant nuclear war. If downplaying human rights allows us to do these things while also looking less hypocritical, why shouldn't we do so? China's human rights record is poor, and is already a non-trivial factor in Sino-American relations. But as with all other political issues, prioritization is crucial. Secretary Clinton did just this during her trip to East Asia and ought to be commended for it.
Please. It's about the money. Obama, unlike Bill Clinton, is not going to cut deficits, he's going to increase them. Words from Hillary:
"I certainly do think that the Chinese government and central bank are making a smart decision by continuing to invest in Treasury bonds," she said during an interview Sunday with the popular talk show "One on One." "It's a safe investment. The United States has a well-deserved financial reputation."
The stimulus scandals, the pro-corporate health "reforms", all of it is being done on China's dime.
George W. Bush destroyed our credibility on the human rights issue. That's what happens when you mislead the nation into war under false pretenses and then go after civil liberties.
Also, because of failed conservative economic policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy that they didn't need, we went from surpluses to huge deficits, giving China a dangerous level of influence over our economy. Now in order to fix this country from the ravages and trail of destruction that failed conservative policies have caused more debt to China will temporarily be accumulated.
It may take a couple of decades before we recover from the failures of conservatism and George W. Bush.
Hillary was screaming about human rights during the primaries; she has proven she's a fraud; she doesn't give a dmn about human rights! She doesn't given a dmn about children who are being denied basic humanitarian aid!
Gotta tell you, I believe our policies torard the American Indians is like what Israel is doing, and opposite what China is doing.
Not the 'culture war' in the primitive sense we mean it in the United States.
China is not a pluralistic society. Cultural minorities are pressured to assimilate into the Han Chinese cultures. This includes Chinese cultural minorities like Chinese Jews and Christians, and non-Chinese ethnic groups like Uighurs, Mongolians, Tibetans, Koreans, Aryans and others. Enjoyment of Chinese mainstream life is contingent upon participating in Han Chinese culture, or confining one's own cultural life to stringently regimented 'approved' channels such as state sponsored synagogues, mosques, and churches. The only Bibles and Korans permitted are those fully approved by government censors.
The Tibetans (and other minorities) are expected to 'be Chinese' or else submit to second class citizenship in the same way that the Dawes Act forced the same upon Native Americans.
I should also note, without either justifying or condemning either nation in puncturing your logic, that Israel makes precisely the same claim about Palestine that you just made about Tibet on behalf of China. In both cases, a population was forced to endure large-scale settlement by another society. In both cases this has provided material progress, in the Western sense of the word. In both cases, the population being occupied has a different view.
The guy was a true believer in every left-wing cause that came down the pike. I didn't always AGREE with him - but I certainly respected his consistency. What do you suppose HE would say to Hillary's cold calculations?
Today, the idealists are gone from your party. "Go along to get along" with the criminal regime that rules China. Our economy DEPENDS upon looking the other way on issues we have cared about for so long, little matters such as human rights, or a free Tibet.
Look - we got bigger fish to fry. I think I hear some teacher's union calling me...
Considering that we keep the bulk of our minorities in ghettos even more violence filled and repressive than any the world has seen. And that our prison system is racial based genocide, that taken with our economic policies ensure the disenfranchisement of most people of color as well as those whites in poverty. It's just a kinder, gentler form of Fascism.
I'm not against taking care of people, but the systematic problems of public housing (a liberal idea in the first place) destroyed whole communities and broke the will of many people.
The problem is economic: poverty creates ghettos, poverty prevents escape from ghettos, poor people trapped in a ghetto have few avenues of economic survival but crime.
Race IS a part of the problem, but addressing the economic problems will allow progress on the racial front.
Look at the Republican Party: wealthy conservative black people hate poor black people as much as wealthy conservative white people do. Then deny racism exists at all.
The United States should attempt to stand for something if only for the nostalgia of it. Hell. if we want to dispense with the Human Rights angle entirely maybe we could provided some of the torturers we trained up over the last eight years in an exchange program where we can really show the Chinese how they can get the most out of a student internee.
You're absolutely right, Mr Black, we can't get all emotional about the plight of the little people when there are greater concerns. Henry L Stimson himself framed the proper approach to these human rights sentimentalities when he understood that American and Filipino forces on Bataan were about to collapse to the Imperial Japanese forces:
"There are times when men must die."
Indeed.
Which isn't to say we need to stop getting countries to abide human rights- quite the opposite. But now it takes a different strategy, one that says "yes, even we have problems living up to our ideals, but together we can make the world a better place."
For too long, American diplomacy has been one of doing for others or just throwing money at a problem (or, the conservative form would be to just throw weapons at a problem). Intelligent diplomacy will be to send experts over to help the target country's experts, and work together on getting sustainable improvements made.
Like Kennedy did in Vietnam?
Or the Bay of Pigs?
I'm sure The Korean War is somehow the conservatives' fault too...
Try living in at LEAST the last few decades, dude. I know right wingers have to look back to over 100 years ago to find a time when they last had any credibility, but come on. Kennedy? Hilarious!
There, I fixed that for you.
If your boss is a racist, sexist, unethical and criminal A hole, it's best not to address those issues with him while in your performance review since, well, you need the money.
I think you can have diplomacy without ever taking your eye off the ball, i.e.: without ever making China feel as if you approve of what they do. Now can everybody see why taking the moral high ground in international relations (not to mention at home) is immensely important?
To be blunt... I am sick and tired of the China apologists. The sooner we cut them off the sooner we can move on to a more long term American growth plan. The pain of cutting them off in the short term is well worth it if we become a whole country again. We didn't fight the revolutionary war to become slaves to globalization and conformity.
A mess I myself made??? Your brain must rattle around your skull like a marble in a boxcar...
Just imagine if China and the USA would set aside their imagined differences and combined forces to make the world a better place. My word, the world would become a better place REAL FAST, if only these two countries can get their collective act together.
How are those assertions not moral equivalents? How is Mrs. Clinton not failing us, yet again?
Maybe Hillary should focus on what she is included in, which gives her a VERY full plate, and stop with the co-president diva act, and get some counseling to help her overcome her constant feelings of victimization. Enough Clinton drama. The nation has too many challenges to nurse her ego.
Opposite those tactics, China has NOT removed ethnic Tibetans from their land, has supported fully their development, including schools, hospitals, performing arts, etc.
Incomprehansible to me how anyone can claim to be a liberal, lie like a rug, and stick head in sand like repubs? Oh, perhaps we have an infestation of closet neo-cons?