In today’s online Wall Street Journal, this piece appeared. Reading it was an odd experience. The headline goes like this: “Obama, Hu Highlight Cooperation.” The first three paragraphs are right on point, with high-level summaries of the nature of Hu’s and Obama’s conversations. Then, suddenly, the fourth paragraph:
Mr. Obama’s statement also pointedly noted the U.S. belief in the importance of universal human rights that should be enjoyed by “all peoples, and all ethnic and religious minorities,” and called for the Chinese government to resume dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing considers a separatist.
Huh? I thought I was going to be reading about how Hu and Obama are working through their differences across a range of complex issues. Then, out of the blue, this. I expect this type of reporting from the New York Times, not the Wall Street Journal.
Don’t get me wrong. Of course human rights need to be respected. Nothing I write here should be taken to impugn the thinking or writing of anyone working to benefit human beings worldwide. The thing is, there’s no shortage of verbiage in Western newspapers about how China comes up short on human rights, and I expect something different from the WSJ.
I was reminded of a conference I co-hosted in Beijing in 2006. At the time I was directing Stanford University’s study abroad program at Peking University. We were welcoming Stanford students, staff and faculty from Stanford’s centers in Kyoto, Berlin and Washington to participate in a workshop on globalization. It seemed that every other question I got from our guests was something akin to: “What’s up with China and their failure to support freedom, democracy, and human rights?” Unfairly, I found myself annoyed by these questions. To me, there were so many other important topics our guests “should” be interested in. Why obsess about these old, tired questions?
I was prompted to put some thought into why I was bothered, and what this all said about key cultural differences between China and the West. I’ll take this up in the next post, and perhaps beyond.
I understand your general point about what appears to be an excessive Western emphasis on human rights issues in China, to the exclusion of many other important and noteworthy issues. But I don’t understand what there is to criticize in the WSJ news article. The article is about what Obama and Hu said in their prepared statements. The WSJ’s report is accurate, isn’t it? Why aren’t Obama’s statements on human rights worth reporting? Should the WSJ be refusing to report Obama’s statements on some topics and only report his statements on other topics? Perhaps your complaint is really with Obama himself rather than the WSJ, for raising the issue in such a way that it makes news? Or with the attitudes in the US that force Obama to raise the issue?