US and China sit down for a belated talk on human rights

The US side of the table will be led by Michael Posner, assistant secretary of State for human rights.

Advocates of stepped-up international pressure on China over human rights concerns were aghast when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a February 2009 visit to China, relegated human rights to second-class status behind closer US-China ties. The consternation prevailed through President Obama’s state visit to China last fall, when, rights activists, say the president failed to make recent glaring human rights retreats part of his public agenda.

Mr. Obama followed a pattern in China that he set in other foreign venues when discussing human rights – at least to a point, Richardson says.

“In Egypt, Ghana, and at the UN, he spoke about the US and dealing with rights issues here, and then he went on to take up the issues we see in those places and why they should be addressed,” she says. “In China he only did the first part of that equation, and it allowed the Chinese to hear one thing and say, 'Great, you have these problems, too.' ”

Lately, a tougher approach

The administration seems to have toughened its approach in recent months, rights advocates concede, as the Internet issue burst open and Chinese officials began issuing harsh sentences in high-profile judicial cases.

“You got the feeling [the administration] realized they weren’t going to get things in other areas as a result of going soft on human rights, so the tide turned a bit,” Richardson says. But she adds that it will be a step backward if the return to a human-rights dialogue becomes an excuse for not discussing the issue in other venues.

“If it simply allows Chinese officials to respond to concerns over rights issues expressed in other meetings and at other levels of government contact with a quick, ‘Oh, save that for the dialogue,’ then that will hardly be progress,” Richardson says.

Related:

• On eve of Shanghai Expo 2010, China finds 'soft power' an elusive goal
• China reins in more rights activists by seizing computers
• China cracks down on human rights lawyers

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