Bush urged China on human rights today, but was anybody listening?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed disappointment about China’s response to a U.S. request in September for action on specific human rights cases.
“We’ve certainly not seen the progress that we would expect and I think we will have to keep working on it,” she told reporters. “But obviously this is a long conversation and a long haul.”
Rice also expressed concern about a crackdown on dissidents ahead of Bush’s arrival. She said the U.S. side would raise the issue “quite vociferously with the Chinese government to both get a clarification and to make clear that we believe open societies allow people to express themselves.”
China’s massive trade surplus is a political headache for Bush. As the president opened his visit, U.S. officials spread word that Beijing was buying 70 of Chicago-based Boeing Co.’s 737 planes.
UPDATE: As covered by the People’s Daily. More here. The LAT reports the story as “mostly business.”
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4 Comments
1. Barry Dauphin:Living near Canada I pick up the CBC with rabbit ears (no cable). The CBC portrayed Bush’s emphasis on human rights as basically red meat for the conservatives in the US but behind closed doors, they’re making nicey-nice with the Chinese party chiefs. That’s probably what the producers at the big three & CNN think too (and NY Times et al). So they figure, why bother saying much about that.
Nov 20, 2005 - 7:46 am 2. ahem:It’s easy to be cynical about this, but I am reminded of Natan Scharansky’s–I believe–remark about how hearing President Reagan pronounce the USSR the ‘Empire of Evil’ lifted his heart. Maybe something President Bush says will have a similar heartening effect on the few Chinese who hear it.
Nov 20, 2005 - 11:26 am 3. It Insider:The trade deficit should be an embarrassment, given that ostensibly American companies are responsible for the vast bulk of it.
This is not an issue of sovereign states squaring legitimate issues of interest.
This is a very late wake up to the fact that American companies have produced very difficult facts on the ground in red China, exercising separate foreign policies that undercut America’s ability to behave in a sovereign manner, having cut those Devil’s Deals with Mao’s successors.
The Chinese must be laughing their arses off here, given that American corporations are almost entirely responsible for our current predicament with regard to the Chinese.
Nov 20, 2005 - 8:27 pm 4. Rosemary:I wouldn’t read the LA Times if you paid me. If I want fiction, I’ll go to my library! (lol)
I have been asking the White House (all of them) to face off with China on Human Rights. Bravo!
As far as the trade defecit, let us take, shall we? I do not buy Chinese goods. I remember Tiananmen Square.
It is the American people who are causing the defecit. There is the demand. You may want to blame the supplier, but it’s the demand that feeds it. Stop the demand, the supplier goes away.
Don’t try the, “Do you want to pay [name your outrageous price] for this?” YES! If it will stop China from having the money to keep making NUCLEAR WEAPONS POINTING AT ME, yes.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I just get that way, because I live in California. Thank you.
Nov 21, 2005 - 3:50 am