From his balcony in Shanghai, Feng Zhenghu greets petitioners who have traveled for assistance with their grievances.  For many, that is as close as they can get to the human rights activist, who has been under virtual house arrest for launching "Shanghai Expo of Unjust Cases," a website that used the problematic Shanghai Expo as a platform to critique the city government. 

Feng Zhenghu made headlines last year when he squatted in the Tokyo Narita International Airport for over three months, after being denied re-entry to China eight times.   He returned home in February and a few months later "Chinese authorities began restricting his movements."
 

A well-known advocate for Chinese petitioners and a self-taught lawyer, Feng Zhenghu insists that he is only demanding the observation of current laws by authorities.  He remains optimistic on the possibility of change, calling upon the public to "overcome our fear... and insist on the truth in life."  

It’s hard not to feel let down by the US-China Human Rights Dialogue which took place at the end of last week.  As many others have already pointed out, China doesn’t really take it seriously.  After all, they sent Chen Xu, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for International Organizations.  When you Google him, the Chen Xu in question doesn’t even come up on the first page of search results.  And as Sophie Richardson pointed out in her post for Foreign Policy, the “Chinese officials spend their visit just trying to run out the clock.” But as the previous eight years have taught us, a minor human rights dialogue is better than no dialogue at all.

The focus of the discussion was primarily around rule of law in China, undoubtedly a critical piece in the drive towards encouraging China to be a more responsible international stakeholder.  Ideally, these talks have set the scene for the continuation of the conversation in the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) taking place in China on May 24-25, but you can’t help but feel that the timing of the Human Rights Dialogue provides a convenient out for human rights to be sidelined during the S&ED. When I read the State Department briefing on the S&ED this morning, there was no mention of human rights, and no indication that human rights issues will be raised at the meeting. As Elizabeth Lynch of China Law & Policy has written, the Chinese government places much more importance on the S&ED, and human rights issues raised there, on Chinese soil, are likely to have much more of an actual impact. 

As the years go by, it makes less and less sense to separate the two dialogues anyway.  Specifically,

-On cybersecurity:  The US is just now waking up to the issue of cybersecurity.  There is good evidence to suggest that while China may not be engaging in direct state-sponsored hacking of foreign corporations, government networks, and human rights activists’ emails, there is at the very least tacit approval (dare I say encouragement?) of the practice.   Those hacking the Chinese government are punished.  Those hacking foreign governments are smiled upon.  Almost every single day I walk into the office to find emails in my inbox containing tracking software or malware intended to shut down my ability to do work.  My boss, Harry Wu, receives at least five such threats each day.  In the larger scheme of things, we’re the little people who are unimportant in these sorts of dialogues, but multinational corporations, many of whom are headquartered in the US, are facing similar difficulties.  It costs American businesses a huge amount of money and time to fight these threats.  Not to mention that it would be pretty catastrophic if Chinese hackers did something like shut down a major electrical grid or something like that, which they have been shown to be capable of doing.  (Read more after the jump)

Since the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989, the United States government has conducted 12 rounds of human rights dialogue with China.  During this time, while commitments were made, minimal achievement on the front of human rights actually occurred as a direct result of three factors: the decoupling of human rights from the strategic economic dialogue, the absence of any concrete benchmarks being created, and the inability of non-governmental organizations to participate in the process.  In the words of Kelley Currie from the 2049 Project, “Using a combination of incentives, coercion and cooptation, China has been incredibly successful in its long-running efforts to reshape the international discourse on its human rights record, and marginalize human rights advocacy directed at it.”

Earlier today China executed a British citizen for the first time in 50 years. Akmal Shaikh, reported to suffer from "severe mental illness", was arrested in 2007 for attempting to smuggle heroin into China from Tajikistan. 

In response to the execution, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement strongly condemning China's refusal to grant clemency, especially given the uncertainty surrounding Shaikh's mental health status. China responded simply, "We express strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British reaction.  We hope the British side will face this case squarely and not put new obstacles in the way of relations between Britain and China."

Furthermore, the extensive international criticism prompted China's "legal experts" to defend the execution as "legitimate" and in accordance with "China's Criminal Law".  Wang Mingliang, a professor of criminal law at Fudan University in Shanghai, even went as far as to say that Shaikh's execution had "nothing to do with human rights concerns." (Read more after the jump)

On Wednesday, the Laogai Museum was honored by a visit from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  We were of course overjoyed, but at the same time disappointed that President Obama did not see fit to meet with the Dalai Lama at this time.  As we saw from the press this morning, the Chinese still kicked off about the fact that the “reviled” Dalai Lama received an award in Congress. 

Obama may have thought that by not meeting with the Dalai Lama before his upcoming trip to Beijing, he would somehow gain favor with the Chinese government on other issues.  In reality, they’ll leverage this decision by pressuring the Obama administration to lower the bar even further when it comes to human rights.  Back in the spring during her trip to Beijing, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said human rights would not be allowed to “interfere” with other strategic issues like climate change or the financial crisis.  But what good is a climate change agreement in a world where the Chinese government routinely imprisons environmental whistleblowers?  And what good is a Chinese-led solution to the global financial crisis without a free press to make sure that the financial sector is transparent?