Human Rights A Dishonest Game

We get two news items from the US on the same day concerning human rights. The first report: China is no longer on the list of the top ten human rights abusers in the report issued by the US State Department on human rights. Report number two: the Democrats in the House of Representatives failed in their effort to forbid the practice of waterboarding. President George W. Bush vetoed the bill and thereby allowed the CIA to torture with impunity.

Together the two reports underscore the contradictory nature of the US government with respect to human rights. The US State Department has been issuing its report on human rights abuses throughout the world since 1977. Now the US considers the marginal gains in China, such as the review of death sentences by the Supreme Court, so significant that they outweigh the continued repression, censorship, torture, reeducation camps and forced labor. This assessment sends the wrong signal at the wrong time. With this report the US is playing into the hands of the Chinese government, which is trying to burnish its image ahead of the Olympic Games in the summer without making any substantive changes in its policies. It certainly was not necessary for Washington to remove an important tool for keeping up the pressure on China until the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

One can only speculate on the reasons for China’s more favorable ranking as a violator of human rights. Does the US anticipate more support from China in the UN Security Council for resolving regional conflicts? Protecting international human rights certainly does not seem be the primary concern here. So what is the value of this State Department rankings?

The US has once again weakened its own credibility. For no matter how questionable it is for nations to rank other nations on issues like this, this decision recklessly undermines any attempt to achieve improvements in China through public criticism.