China-US human rights dialogue resumes

It has been two years since the last human rights dialogue took place between the US and China. Its creation had to do with trade relations. In 2000, the United States Congress granted China permanent "NTR" status. NTR is short for "Normal Trading Status" and replaced "MFN", or "Most Favored Nation" status around the turn of the millennium.

Prior to China's permanent status, the renewal of their MFN status depended on a yearly audit of their human rights record. The so-called human rights dialogues have long since replaced the annual audit. But the question is: now that China has permanent "NTR" status with the US, do they really need to work on their human rights record to maintain favorable trade relations with the United States? Besides that, there is considerable criticism from rights groups, who claim the talks are an empty forum in terms of substance.

No role for NGOs

Amnesty International criticizes the fact that the forum includes no benchmarks or goals. Furthermore, according to Amnesty International's Corinna-Barbara Francis, while the dialogues are being resumed with the US, they will not be as they were in the past. "A major change is that in the past, NGOs had a more central role, they were able to participate to provide briefings and interventions in the seminars that are part of the dialogues. And now they have resumed, there are no NGOs anymore. So that's a very big step backwards in our view."

Francis says the NGOs played a central role in the dialogue because they had the knowledge of actual track records. "The Chinese have been much more aggressive excluding certain NGOs. Even certain individuals are not given access to the dialogue."

Dialogue suspended between 2004 and 2008

The past decade has seen a very rocky road in terms of the human rights dialogue between China and the US. In 2004, China halted annual talks and didn't resume them until 2008, right before the Olympic Games in Beijing. Hans van Ess, professor of Chinese studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, believes China halted the talks at this time because of the US-led war in Iraq, in which the US committed a whole slew of human rights violations, according to the Chinese. And the fact that the dialogue was resumed leading up to the Olympic Games was nothing more than a PR move, as Francis puts it. "On a whole range of issues, they did try to show themselves to be much more progressive in their human rights record and many of those things were shut down right after the Olympics."

After 2008, the Chinese put the talks on hold yet again. And the talks that are taking place this year were actually due to kick off far earlier in the year. But they were halted once again by China because of US arms sales to Taiwan, among other issues.

Showing good will

Van Ess says it is possible that China has decided to resume the talks this time around because of the world Expo in Shanghai, which opened at the beginning of May. "I think this is an important international event and the Chinese are very interested in showing a nice face of China to the world. They are very well aware that in the West, their face is quite ugly, that many media portray China as a demon and they are desperately trying to change that."

But another reason why the Chinese are keen on the talks is because it helps "sell" other issues. As van Ess puts it, "they know that to proceed with it means showing good will and that sometimes good will is an advantage if you have other talks going on."

And this is exactly what rights groups like Amnesty International criticize about the talks. "They have become, in a sense, a substitute for more direct interventions on the part of government. They've been a way for governments to not raise issues directly with the Chinese, including in a public way. You might even say that they've allowed governments to kind of hide behind them," says Francis.

But while Francis criticizes the talks for not involving the press and not being open, China expert van Ess says that is exactly what might be able to bring about any change, while pointing out that China has no intention of letting the dialogue change its system. "I think there are some positive effects for some persons and I think that is a good thing but I don't really see there has been a change in Chinese politics because of human rights dialogues in the past."

It's the economy...

In the relations between the US and China, many feel the US has tended to take on the role of an "elder brother" in the past, sometimes even being condescending. But now China is the largest foreign holder of American debt. Van Ess says, "it really is an issue of economics. They both know that its not just ‘elder brother' and ‘younger brother' anymore. They are dependent on each other. The Chinese hold a very large extent of American bonds and so they can do something about the American dollar. I think that is something which maybe will force the Americans to moderate their tone."

Author: Sarah Berning
Editor: Grahame Lucas