Op-Ed Contributors

Base talks on mutual respect

By Tao Wenzhao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-11 07:53

Shared interests should override Sino-US differences over human rights and disputes should be resolved amicably

A new round of Sino-US dialogue on human rights is scheduled to be held in Washington on May 13-14.

The talks, to be chaired by Director-General of the Foreign Ministry's International Organization Chen Xu, and the US Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner, will be the first such session since May 2008.

The dialogue was originally scheduled for February-end but was delayed due to the strained ties between Washington and Beijing over arms sale to Taiwan and US President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama early this year.

The US has adopted varying approaches with regard to China on the human rights issue since the end of the Cold War, taking into account the changed bilateral relationship between the two countries.

The disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union in the early 1990s led many in the US to believe that Western-style democracy and values had achieved an overpowering victory over the Soviet-led Eastern camp.

Such a belief resulted in the evolution of the ideological factor in the US' China policy and the prevalence of the "China's collapse" tone in the US for a time.

At that time, it was a dominant belief among many American politicians that pressurizing China would help facilitate changes in the Asian nation's polices and even a change in its political landscape. The human rights issue was believed to be a key area where the US could effectively thrust its "high-handed policy" on China.

In a concrete move towards this purpose, Washington chose to link its most-favored nation treatment (MFNT) status for China to the Asian nation's human rights conditions. Against this backdrop, heated debates emerged within the US Congress and between the Congress and the White House from 1990 to 1992 as to whether such a treatment should be extended to Beijing at all.

The US administration of former President George Bush rebuffed Congress pressures by extending the treatment to China three times, which, together with efforts from Beijing, managed to prevent bilateral relations from sliding.

After he came to power in 1993, Bill Clinton once again decided to link the MFNT to China's human rights record. The move not only ran into strong opposition from China, but also ignited disagreements within the Clinton administration, the US Congress and American business circles.

Due to its unpopularity at home and abroad, the Clinton administration announced the de-linking of the MFNT from the human rights issue in 1994.

Despite great efforts made by the US Democratic administration since 1996 to maintain a stable relationship with China, Washington and Beijing still hold divergent views on the human rights issue.

The differences between the two were so sharp that the issue became a topic of heated debates between heads of the two countries during visits by their leaders in 1997 and 1998.