Get Kelley’s RSS FeedThe latest session of the U.S.-China bilateral human rights dialogue is taking place in Washington this week, the first such meeting since May 2008. These sporadic, formulaic meetings long ceased to be useful in addressing China’s most serious human rights offenses. They have degenerated into surreal exchanges that give equal time and weight to Chinese critiques of America’s human rights “problems” and Chinese filibusters on the “progress” China is making in developing the “rule of law.” There is little reason to expect this upcoming dialogue will see any improvement, particularly given the low priority that the Obama administration has placed on human rights issues in the larger context of the U.S.-China relationship. The Obama team is anyway looking ahead to the “more important” Strategic and Economic Dialogue that is scheduled to take place in Beijing later this month. (more)
Kelley Currie - Kelley Currie is a Fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, working on issues related to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining Project 2049, Ms. Currie was a Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues at the U.S. Department of State. She has also served as senior advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross; director of government relations for the International Campaign for Tibet; and deputy director for Asia at the International Republican Institute. From 1995-1999, Ms. Currie was foreign policy advisor to Congressman John Porter (R-IL), and concurrently served as the majority staff director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Ms. Currie received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Georgia.
Senior Obama administration officials recently have hinted they are running out of patience with efforts to engage Burma’s military regime. The futility of engagement with these thugs should have been obvious after the junta unveiled election laws requiring the country’s leading democratic political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to expel its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other jailed party members in order to participate in upcoming elections. The NLD had no choice but to boycott and now the party faces dissolution. Last week, 22 of Burma’s ruling generals—many of whom have blood on their hands—resigned from the military to form a new political party. This travesty is merely the latest step in the junta’s cynical plan to put a veneer of elected civilian legitimacy over their entrenched rule. (more)
When President Obama failed to meet with the Dalai Lama last fall before going to Beijing, that non-meeting became shorthand for his administration’s overly solicitous approach to China’s sensitive spots—generating both praise and criticism. With the U.S.-China relationship hitting the skids in recent months, last week’s meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama became symbolic of the current tensions in the U.S.-China relationship and a focal point for speculation about whether the Obama administration is taking a tougher line on China. (more)
Another round of navel-gazing about China’s “new” assertiveness and how the United States should respond to it is under way. (more)
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