By Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Recent blunt criticism of China’s human rights record from senior American officials must be matched with action to have any impact, rights advocates told lawmakers on Friday.

They said China’s ongoing crackdown against dissent predates uprisings in the Arab world and shows no sign of abating.

“What we have been seeing in recent weeks is a real ratcheting up in terms of the unlawfulness and the sheer thuggishness of the Chinese government’s and the security forces’ methods against its people,” Philem Kine, Asia researcher of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, told a House of Representatives panel.

He said China’s attack on human rights dates back to before the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the crackdown demands a rethink of the “toothless” U.S. approach that separates rights from other issues and signals to the Chinese that they are not a core American interest.

“Human rights are taken out of the box once a year for a couple of days and then put back,” Kine told the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“The Chinese government in recent years has run a cost-benefit ratio on repression and they have concluded that it pays,” he said.

WEAKNESS BREEDS DEFIANCE

Exiled 1970s democracy activist Wei Jingsheng told the hearing that official lawlessness and repression is rising in part because “the international community, particularly the U.S. government, is showing its weakness to the Chinese government due to economic interests.”

“This weakness has led, for a while now, to a rising defiance against the USA by the Chinese officials and the society at large,” said Wei.

China has jailed, detained or placed in secretive informal custody dozens of dissidents, human rights lawyers and protesters it fears will challenge Communist Party rule.

A party leadership succession in late 2012 is encouraging China to keep a hard grip on dissent, as is anxiety that anti-authoritarian uprisings in the Arab world might inspire similar movements on the Chinese mainland.

The crackdown prompted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to label China’s human rights record “deplorable” in an April interview with the Atlantic Magazine published on Tuesday.

“They’re worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool’s errand,” she said. “They cannot do it. But they’re going to hold it off as long as possible.”

Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden also raised human rights at the start of the annual U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue on Monday.

Kine recommended more coordination within the U.S. government and among allies to raise human rights as they relate to the rule of law and China’s credibility in trade, financial and other dealings.

“If the people who deal with China on trade, financial and defense matters raise concerns, the Chinese government will sit up and take notice,” said Kine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-usa-china-rights-idUSTRE74C6VU20110513