Incorporate Human Rights Concerns into China Policy

[ 43 ] special roundtable • advising the new u.s. president “To the extent that the United States gives up its claim to be working for universal values, it becomes what its enemies already see.” • Incorporate Human Rights Concerns into China Policy Barrett McCormick One of the pressing foreign policy problems for the new president will be to incorporate human rights concerns into China policy. At this moment in history, any U.S. president would be tempted to avoid pressing human rights issues with the Chinese government. The Bush administration’s forceful campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East has failed so badly as to discredit democratic ideals. In China both the government and public opinion are hypersensitive to the appearance of foreign meddling in domestic affairs. And decades of rapid economic growth have so strengthened the Chinese state as to have changed the balance of power: the Chinese government now has the ability to reject international pressure and even reorganize the international human rights regime. This makes a seemingly strong case for accepting cultural relativism and adopting a realist foreign policy. But while seemly pragmatic, that policy actually undermines Washington’s most fundamental interests. China’s nationalists will not welcome a renewed U.S. commitment to human rights. Many in China are keen to see their country’s economic success as removing doubts they have long had about the moral worth of their civilization, and they view any mention of problems as a last attempt to deny their rightful dignity. Indeed, China’s rapid economic growth does mark a profound improvement in human rights and human dignity. In a transformation that will surely be long remembered as one of the two or three most important events of our time, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of subsistence level poverty. Hundreds of millions of Chinese now have a reasonable expectation that entrepreneurial energy will be rewarded. China is now the “can do” country that the United States once was. But China’s human rights problems are real. Minorities, especially Tibetans and Uighurs, live under the heavy hand of police and military. They and others face severe constraints in practicing their religion. Rural barrett mccormick is a Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. He can be reached at . [ 44 ] asia policy people who move to cities in search of economic opportunity are treated like second-class citizens. Pervasive censorship means that for the most part Chinese officials are only accountable when higher levels permit. Vital information about disease, product and food safety, and many other issues is suppressed in the interests of avoiding negative publicity and maintaining profitability regardless of the cost to public welfare. Whole industries, notably coal, maintain abysmally low safety standards. China’s environment is severely strained. Citizens caught on the receiving end of environmental abuse often have little recourse. Government officials and corporate leaders may dispose of land, pensions, and even wage claims with little regard for the rights of workers and farmers. Abuse by police and prison officials is widespread. Those who criticize official misconduct risk incarceration and conviction on trumped up charges. Despite the claims of cultural relativists and Chinese nationalists, such abuses insult the human dignity of Asians just like anyone else. Other East Asian countries whose dictatorships once claimed to exemplify unique East Asian cultural traditions—including Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan— have since democratized and are no less East Asian or Confucian for having done so. Nor is there any need for citizens to suffer outrageous abuses to maintain rapid growth. But nationalists do have a point: China, like every other state, has a reasonable right to sovereignty. While we might agree that abuses of human rights on the scale of genocide call for prompt and forceful international intervention, few see that level of abuse in China. Conversely, the United States has a pressing interest in carefully working for the universal advancement of human rights. True, maintaining U.S. power requires Washington to engage, at least to some degree, in amoral power politics. However, critics, such as China’s hypernationalists, discredit the United States with the claim that power politics is the sole driver of U.S. foreign policy...