The US said on Wednesday the human rights situation in China was deteriorating and it was time for its authoritarian government to allow dissent.
US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner was speaking after an annual US-China human rights dialogue that ended in Washington on Tuesday.
Posner, whose portfolio covers democracy, human rights and labor issues, said there was growing frustration among many Chinese people that they do not have the ability to express their differences with the government.
“Our message to the Chinese government is you’ve made progress on the economic front, this is the moment to open up the space to allow people to dissent, to question government actions and to do so without fear of retribution,” he told reporters.
Posner said the US raised with the Chinese delegation dozens of individual cases of those persecuted that included lawyers, bloggers, non-government group activists, journalists and religious leaders.
He declined to characterize China’s responses. He said the visiting delegation had questioned the US’ own human rights record, asking about discrimination and prison conditions.
The Chinese delegation was led by Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for International Organizations and Conferences Chen Xu (陳旭). China’s embassy in Washington did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the dialogue.
Skeptics, including in the US Congress, have questioned whether the formal talks that China holds with Western powers on human rights have any use and may help it fend off critics without taking action.
“A human rights dialogue with the communist regime in Beijing matters for little until the rule of law is genuinely rooted in Chinese soil,” said US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Posner said that activists in China, including family members of detainees, want the US to speak in public and private with Beijing and pointed to growing attention rights issues draw among Chinese on the Internet and in blogs.
The US said it raised the conditions of ethnic and religious minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang; the cases of imprisoned democracy activists Chen Wei (陳衛) and Chen Xi (陳西); Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波); jailed lawyers Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) and Ni Yulan (倪玉蘭); and Feng Jianmei (馮建梅), a woman forced to have an abortion at seven months.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS