Rights groups urge Merkel to avoid "quiet" diplomacy

By Bill Smith Feb 1, 2012, 12:31 GMT

Beijing - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's two-day visit to China from Thursday will focus on economic and financial issues, but rights groups and Chinese dissidents hope she will also publicly condemn the ruling Communist Party's recent abuses of human rights.

During her meetings with Chinese leaders, Merkel was expected to raise human rights and concerns over violent clashes between police and protesters in Tibetan areas of China.

It was not known if she planned to make a strong public statement or refer openly to any specific cases of human rights violations, two things that she avoided on previous visits to China.

German officials have argued that Merkel's usual 'quiet diplomacy' can be more useful than public shaming of China.

They said Merkel raised general human rights issues and individual cases during previous talks with Chinese leaders, but they declined to give details.

But several international human rights advocates dismiss such a low-level approach, arguing that it simply reduces the risk of angering China and protects Western governments' economic and diplomatic links with the increasingly powerful Asian nation.

Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, urged that 'human rights concerns should be mainstreamed into all foreign policy discussions.'

Merkel should 'take all opportunities - official and unofficial - to convey the serious concerns of her government about the human rights situation in China,' Hom told dpa.

'What is needed is not one silver bullet by any one actor at one time, but a concerted multi-pronged approach by each international actor,' she said. 'Any approach is good if it works, (but) what results can 'quiet diplomacy' claim?'

John Kamm, founder of the US-based Dui Hua Foundation sees quiet diplomacy and open criticism as complementary.

'Quiet, behind-the-doors diplomacy on cases and the 'speaking loud and clear' or 'naming and shaming' approaches are not mutually exclusive,' Kamm said. 'Sometimes using only one approach is preferable, other times its best to use both.'

Kamm is a former businessman who for the past 20 years has used his connections in China to lobby officials to reduce sentences or release prisoners, with some notable results.

ChinaAid, a US-based Christian rights group, said the quiet approach 'does not work for Chinese politics' and that embarrassing the government was more powerful because of the 'shame-oriented culture' in Asia.

'Quieter' diplomacy had corresponded with a deterioration of human rights in China over the last three years, ChinaAid spokesman Mark Shan told dpa.

Embarrassing the Chinese government by repeatedly drawing attention to its human rights problems was 'always helpful' for the victims and for wider improvements in human rights, Shan said.

Several rights groups said China appeared to have released artist and activist Ai Weiwei on bail in June in response to extensive international pressure.

Li Jinping, a dissident who was detained in a Beijing psychiatric unit for seven months, told dpa that international attention also appeared to have led to his release in June.

'I think it's good for us,' Li said of the possibility of Merkel raising his and other cases with Chinese leaders this week. 'It is also good for the development of international human rights if China can improve its own human rights.'

'Chinese human rights activists themselves are unanimous to say that public pressure is needed and that it is effective. So are former political prisoners,' said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Bequelin said public pressure on China by Germany and other Western nations must continue 'because quiet diplomacy leads nowhere.'

'Being weak on human rights at a time when the situation has deteriorated markedly is also a mistake because it strengthens the hand of hard-liners within the party, which is ultimately also against the interest of the international community in general and Germany in particular,' he said.

Yet the government sometimes appears to take little notice of the most prominent cases raised by Western politicians and rights groups. They include dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, who is still serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion despite winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Wang Songlian of China Human Rights Defenders said she hoped Merkel would 'press the Chinese government for an end to the ongoing crackdown on human rights activists.'

'We would like Ms Merkel to ask about human rights defenders including Liu Xiaobo, Gao Zhisheng, Chen Guangcheng, Chen Wei, Chen Xi and Li Tie, who have been given long prison sentences, disappeared or subjected to indefinite illegal house arrest,' Wang said.

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