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Clinton’s stumbling start - The Boston Globe
Considering how pressing the current need for international cooperation on the financial crisis is, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the Secretary misstepped on this one (see below). I suspect that China pressed their ongoing concern about the U.S. Human Rights Report which will be released this month and that the Secretary’s comments reflected the silliness of an annual dialogue that’s become nearly meaningless because of its rote nature.
“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.
Worse yet, Clinton justified her intent to soft-pedal human rights by saying, “We know what they’re going to say, because I’ve had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders.” This remark betrays two stunning assumptions: that American protests about human rights abuses have no effect on Chinese authorities, and that US-Chinese cooperation is possible only if the United States kowtows to Beijing’s insistence on what it calls non-interference in its domestic affairs.”
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