On the New York Review of Books blog, Perry Link writes about the intersection of global warming, environmental activism and human rights in China:
Nearly all Chinese protests of environmental abuse have concerned air and water pollution, not climate change. When people choke on the air that they breathe and see their children die of lead poisoning, the threat of climate change seems remote by comparison. But Zhang Zuhua and Jiang Qisheng are no doubt correct to say that Chinese people have no more appetite for “the prospect of a cooked planet” than anyone else has. The problem is that the issue has not been properly presented to them. China’s state-controlled media and education curricula avoid the topic. From the rulers’ point of view, one more cause for protest is one more threat to their grip on power.
The Obama administration has said several times that it wants China as a reliable “partner” on global issues. Apparently seeking to turn this wish into a reality, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Beijing last February seeking Chinese government cooperation on climate change, terrorism, and the economic crisis, while declaring that issues like human rights should not “interfere.” Here she was in line with the long-standing practice of “China experts” in and around US governing circles, who tend to downplay discussion of China’s dismal human rights record until it becomes little more than short lists of political prisoners presented to China’s leaders behind closed doors.
China’s political prisoners do, of course, need help. But to isolate the human rights issue in this way is a radical misconception of what is at stake. US officials would do better to view the issue as pervading almost every other matter of concern between the US and China, including urgent problems like global warming.
