China and the US will hold human rights talks in Beijing next week, the US State Department announced yesterday, amid a Chinese crackdown on government critics that has drawn US condemnation.
Authorities in China have launched their toughest clampdown on dissent in years since anonymous online appeals emerged in February calling for weekly protests to emulate those that rocked the Arab world.
The State Department said the discussions next week would focus on “human rights developments, including the recent negative trend of forced disappearances, extralegal detentions, and arrests and convictions.”
US Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner will lead an inter-agency delegation to Beijing for the US-China Human Rights Dialogue on Wednesday and Thursday, it added in a statement.
The dialogue is held intermittently, depending on the state of relations between China and the US. It took place last year, in 2008 and before that in 2002.
Scores of Chinese activists and rights lawyers have been rounded up in the past few months since the “Jasmine” campaign emerged, aiming to encourage calls for reform similar to those that sparked unrest in the Arab world.
Prominent artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未), a staunch critic of China’s ruling Communist Party whose fame had until now given him relative protection, has also been detained and is being investigated for “economic crimes.”
So far, though, no public demonstrations have been reported in China.
Separately, rights groups say security forces have used force to put down protests by monks at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Sichuan Province, triggered when a young monk burnt himself to death last month.
The US State Department has repeatedly criticized the Chinese government clampdown, called for the release of detainees, including Ai, and hit out at the crackdown at the prominent Kirti Monastery.
In related news, Chinese police have moved to prevent members of the unregistered Shouwang church, a Protestant congregation, from holding public services over the past two weekends.
Church leaders say they are now under house arrest to prevent them holding Easter services tomorrow.
China has reacted angrily to the criticism, telling the US not to interfere and to “stop making irresponsible remarks.”
It also this month released its own assessment of the US’ human rights record, which lamented the bloodshed of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and included reports of waterboarding and other harsh treatment of US enemy combatants.
“The United States has turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation and seldom mentions it,”said the report, issued each year to rebut an annual State Department report on human rights around the world that routinely criticizes China.
During the talks next week, other rights issues will be discussed including the rule of law, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, labor and minority rights, the State Department said.
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