Clinton: Chinese human rights can’t interfere with other crises
ICC Note:
In her efforts to ensure that the United States and China have a “positive, cooperative relationship,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized that human rights “can’t interfere with the global economoc crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis,” on her visit to China. Though the Chinese government is relieved, underground Christians and other dissidents who are increasingly suffering persecution under the hands of this government most certainly feel differently.
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2/22/09 China (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broached the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders on Saturday, but emphasized that the global financial slump and other international crises were more pressing and immediate priorities.
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“Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis,” she told reporters in Seoul, South Korea.
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“It is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship,” Clinton told a group of reporters.
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“Although differences exist, China is willing to conduct the dialogues with the U.S. to push forward the human rights situation on the premise of mutual respect and noninterference in each other’s internal affairs,” Yang was quoted by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
