Originally published by Washington Post,January 13, 2011
By Scott Wilson,Washington Post Staff Writer

President Obama met for more than an hour Thursday at the White House with five advocates for greater civil liberties and human rights in China, just days before Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival in Washington for a state visit.

 The meeting – which lasted 75 minutes in the Roosevelt Room – was part of Obama’s preparation for his meetings with the Chinese leader, two senior administration officials said.

 It was the first time Obama has met with advocates for human rights in China at the White House.

 In a September address at the U.N. General Assembly, the president emphasized the centrality of human rights in U.S. foreign policy. But the administration has been cautious in raising the issue publicly with China, which has traditionally reacted harshly to criticism of its rights record.

 On Thursday, Obama questioned the advocates – three of whom were born in China – about how, in the words of one administration official, “the arbitrary exercise of power is felt in the everyday lives of the Chinese people.” Obama recalled his own childhood in Indonesia, then governed by dictatorship.

 “One thing he kept coming back to was, how does the omnipresence of the state, how does corruption, affect the lives of real people,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And he asked how we should use our leverage. Where should we use our leverage?”

 “There was a lot of talk about how to reach into China to be heard,” the official continued. “He was very, very interested in that.”

 While economic and security issues are likely to be the focus of much of Hu’s visit, how Obama manages the topic of human rights will likely help define the summit and provide clues to how the president intends to speak about the contentious subject with China in the years ahead.

 By hosting Hu, who arrives Wednesday, Obama will achieve the distinction of becoming the first U.S. president to host a head of state who is currently holding a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in prison.

 The Chinese writer and democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo was awarded the prize in October, and it was presented to his empty chair in Oslo two months later. Obama, who won the prize the previous year, “welcomed” the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the prize to Liu. China condemned it.

 At their summit, Obama and Hu are expected to announce the resumption of the U.S.-China “human rights dialogue” after a roughly half-year hiatus. The forum allows U.S. officials to raise with the Chinese government concerns over specific political prisoners, among other issues.

 But the subject also holds the most potential to disrupt a visit that Hu views as important to his legacy. He is scheduled to leave the presidency in 2012.

 A second senior administration official who attended Thursday’s meeting with the human rights advocates said Obama will speak about human rights in his public appearance with Hu and also bring up the issue during their private meetings.

 The two will also take questions at a news conference, something U.S. officials insisted on.

 “The president’s style in talking about human rights is different than others have used,” the official said. “His convictions come through strongly, but he is not interested in hectoring, or lecturing, or embarrassing them. He’s interested in affecting how people think.”

 Administration officials said Obama also sought the human rights advocates’ assessment of the rising nationalism expressed by young people in China, and what effect it might have on outside efforts to expand civil liberties inside the country.

 The human rights advocates who attended the meeting with Obama were Andrew Nathan of Columbia University; Zha Jianying, a Chinese writer and expert on the country’s youth culture; Paul Gewirtz, founder of the China Law Center at Yale University; Bette Bao Lord, a Chinese-born writer, democracy advocate and wife of former U.S. ambassador to China Winston Lord; and Li Xiarong, a Chinese human rights advocate since the 1980s now living in exile in the United States.

 All have worked extensively inside China. Zha is also a signer of Charter 08, a petition for greater civil liberties and a constitutional democracy that Liu, the imprisoned Nobel laureate, helped write and circulate.

 “The meeting was very pluralistic, many different opinions were shared,” said the first official. “But the consensus was that human rights has to be on the agenda even if it is awkward. And it makes a difference when it is.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011306925.html