Thursday, May 3, 2012

Chen continued..

The situation in China re-Chen is becoming a huge embarrassment for the Obama Administration. It now appears that the Chinese have reneged on a deal to grant more freedom to the political activist and are denying US officials access to him. Chen also appears desperate to leave China. 

The problem here is that Obama claims to be the agent of human rights.. and yet now we have a situation in which the US looks incredibly weak (China ignoring the supposed deal) and fundamentally realist in nature (US more concerned in Hillary Clinton's visit than in human rights issues). As I noted earlier (see post below), the President has a track record in this area. I understand the need for a balanced relationship with China.. I supported GW Bush's 2008 visit to the Beijing Olympics. However, when someone comes to a US Embassy for help after facing political prosecution.. we better be pretty sure that we are comfortable that person won't be screwed when he leaves that Embassy. Essentially, we must ensure that a freedom seeking man or woman isn't abandoned for the sake of our own short term consideration of political expediency.


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