China and Human Rights

China has come under intense criticism lately for Tibet, its role in Africa, its contribution to global warming and its own domestic human rights problems. China's de-facto annexation of Tibet is terrible. Its contribution to conflict in many parts of Africa, including Khartoum's brutal war in Darfur is horrible. China's recent attempt to ship arms to Zimbabwe, while Mugabe's government cracks down on the opposition is intolerable. Its domestic repression, deplorable. No doubt, China pursues its economic interest at expense of human rights and the environment.

Unfortunately, the human rights community has chosen a strategy that doesn't work. The old name and shame game. The problem is, China's leadership doesn't care very much. Sure, they will send out envoy's to refute the claim that China hasn't done enough to help stop the war in Darfur. And they will complain that the U.S. went through its major industrial revolution vis-a-vis cheap energy and with little concern for the environmental consequences. And they are right on that point. But in the end, Beijing's actions reveal what they care about. International prestige. Becoming a major world player on the world scene.

The U.S. is presented with a dilemma. Continue to slam China's human rights record and its dirty economy; while leading the world in arms exports to places like Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, consuming the bulk of the world's resources and undercutting international law. Continue that trend, and prepare for a new war over power and the last drop of oil in Africa, which will soon surpass the Middle East in oil exports.

The alternative is U.S. adherence to international law, especially the Kyoto environmental framework. Reducing U.S. emissions while developing a clean energy economy will show leadership and give the U.S. the credibility to urge China and India to develop their economies in a sustainable way.

Isolationists and neo-cons argue that applying international law undercuts U.S. national security and in the case of the Kyoto protocol, our economy. This is simply false.

International law is a tool. It is a worthless tool if the United States undermines the law. We lose our ability to coerce bad actors like the Chinese into stopping arms flows to dictators, and pursuing a more sustainable development strategy if we are the world's leading supplier of weapons and the world's leading emitter of green house gases. The only way to stave off future wars over energy and water is to look towards frameworks and laws which provide equitable resource and power-sharing agreements. U.S. adherence to these frameworks is needed now. The very first step the U.S. Congress can take - pay down our debt to the United Nations.