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)

-On Internet Censorship:  After cybersecurity, this should be the centerpiece of our dialogues with China.  The Chinese government’s downright hostile approach to free speech on the internet is hurting American (and Chinese!) economic interests.  When I wrote a piece on the Google exit for the Huffington Post, I was excoriated in the Chinese blogosphere for deigning to say that Google’s exit represented a rare coming together of the interests of average Chinese internet users, Chinese technology companies, American technology companies, and human rights activists.  I stand by that assertion. Google’s decision to stop censoring search results did provide cover for others to speak up about this issue, from the Congressional Executive Commission on China calling a hearing on the topic to Charles Zhang to Sohu alluding to the fact that internet censorship is bad for its business as well.  What the US government should do more of is standing up for American companies’ rights to do business in China without interference.  No one in their right mind could honestly say that the current set-up does not privilege Chinese companies.  In fact, EU Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, who leads the EU’s “digital agenda” (do we have one of those? We should!), said that internet censorship should be a WTO issue.

-That leads me to the third issue- State Secrets.  China’s state secrets laws make life difficult not just for dissidents, but for American companies too.  The very nature of state secrets mean that one does not know what constitutes a violation of the law until the so-called violation has already taken place.  Foreign companies are starting to bristle under the state secrets law as well, particularly after the well-publicized case involving Rio Tinto exec Stern Hu.  The meaning of “State secrets” can be manipulated to capture any number of offenses whenever the government chooses, and undermines the general trend towards the development of rule of law.  It’s bad for business and bad for human rights.

-Press Freedom.  Even more than one-party rule, China’s restrictions on press freedom categorically mean that people are thrown out of their homes by corrupt local officials, food is poisoned with noxious chemicals, schools are produced with shoddy concrete, Buddhist monks are jailed, and a grieving country cannot openly discuss a spate of violent attacks against children.  Increased press freedom matters for American interests as well.  How can we hold China to account on international agreements on climate change, for example, if none of the government’s statistics can be investigated by external parties?    How can we be assured that China is not covering up massive environmental disasters when it imprisons whistleblowers in Laojiao (re-education through labor) simply for flagging a massive public health hazard?