BEIJING — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that the debate with China over human rights, Taiwan and Tibet cannot be allowed to interfere with attempts to reach consensus on other broader issues.
Shortly before arriving in Beijing on the last leg of her inaugural trip abroad as America’s top diplomat, Clinton told reporters accompanying her that she would raise those contentious issues, but noted that neither side is likely to give ground on them.
Instead, she said it might be better to agree to disagree on long-standing positions and focus instead on U.S.-Chinese engagement on climate change, the global financial crisis and security threats.
Her comments drew immediate negative reaction from human rights advocates who were hoping for a repeat of the stance she took nearly 15 years ago when she was first lady and publicly took on and angered the Chinese government in a tough speech on this issue.
But in surprisingly candid remarks, Clinton said each side already knows the other’s long-standing divergent positions on those matters and progress might be more achievable by concentrating on other areas where Washington and Beijing can work together.
“There is a certain logic to that,” Clinton said in Seoul, South Korea, immediately before leaving for Beijing.
“That doesn’t mean that questions of Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, the whole range of challenges that we often engage on with the Chinese, are not part of the agenda,” she said. “But we pretty much know what they’re going to say.”
“We know we’re going to press them to reconsider their position about Tibetan religious and cultural freedom and autonomy for the Tibetans and some kind of recognition or acknowledgment of the Dalai Lama and we know what they’re going to say.
“I have had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders and we know what they’re going to say about Taiwan and military sales and they know what we’re going to say.
“We have to continue to press them, but our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises. We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those.”
Human rights groups, some of whom had written to Clinton last week urging her to make the matter a priority, immediately denounced the remarks.
“Amnesty International is shocked and extremely disappointed by (Clinton’s) comments that human rights will not be a priority in her diplomatic engagement with China,” the organization said in statement.
“The United States is one of the only countries that can meaningfully stand up to China on human rights issues,” it said. “By commenting that human rights will not interfere with other priorities, Secretary Clinton damages future U.S. initiatives to protect those rights in China.”
Human Rights Watch said Clinton had “made a strategic mistake in appearing to concede that she expects no meeting of the minds on human rights issues.”
In her remarks, Clinton stressed she had never shied away from bringing up human rights issues with China, recalling her 1995 speech to the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing that so angered authorities that they pulled the plug on live television coverage of it.
“I made a speech about women’s rights and human rights,” she said. “I have had firsthand experience with some of the reactions” to criticism.
Clinton will be in Beijing for two days of meetings with senior Chinese officials with a focus on climate change, the financial crisis and efforts to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks. She said that she wanted to find a way to best achieve results with the Chinese.
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