U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2009)

U.S. Department of State

2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

Special Briefing
Karen Stewart
Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Washington, DC
February 25, 2009

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QUESTION: Yeah. It's unfortunate that the Secretary left before taking any questions, but this is really probably a question better directed to her. But since you are the one who is up here, I'm wondering if you can square some things, especially about China. This report is highly critical of China, or at least it notes that there were some -- there were severe and substantial human rights abuses in China last year.

There are 44 pages of pretty damning accounts of these abuses, and I'm wondering how you can square -- how you square this with Secretary Clinton's comments last week that the human rights dialogue with China cannot be allowed to interfere with cooperation in other areas, broader areas like the financial crisis and climate change.

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY STEWART: Well, with China, the report certainly concludes that China's human rights reports remain -- human rights record remains poor in 2008, and it worsened in some areas. I think, though, you should look at all the remarks that the Secretary made and what she did when she was out in China. As she says, human rights area is a fundamental aspect of our foreign policy. We -- and in all bilateral relations, we work to achieve all of our goals and national interests. Human rights problems were raised, have been raised in the past, were raised by the Secretary in China, will continue to be raised, and we will continue to express our concern for specific cases and for the overall issues that we would like to see improvements in.

QUESTION: So you're not worried about a disconnect or that this report, in singling out -- well, in raising these abuses that were committed by the Chinese authorities will in any way hurt the dialogue in these other areas that the Secretary spoke --

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY STEWART: I don't think there is a disconnect. We put out in these reports as factual and as objective a report as we can of what we saw happening in 2008.

QUESTION: And you're not concerned about any negative reaction or any unwillingness, based on this report, of the Chinese to cooperate in the other areas.

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY STEWART: I think we'll have a full dialogue with the Chinese on all areas.

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QUESTION: Thank you. Raghubir Goyal from India Globe. On Asia today, two questions, please, quickly. One, Tibetans are crying for human rights. And when Secretary Rice was in China, this issue came up or not, or if they knew about this report on their --

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY STEWART: Well, I know some things are happening in Tibet or, you know, events even today. But yes, we continue to press the need -- our concern that they're -- that that's one of the areas in which the -- China's human rights record worsened this year was in the errant treatment and the social, cultural, and religious restrictions on Tibet and on the Xinjiang Autonomous Regions.

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