{"id":5685,"date":"2015-09-27T00:13:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T04:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=5685"},"modified":"2015-09-27T00:13:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T04:13:26","slug":"obama-xi-talk-rights-as-protesters-demand-end-to-oppression-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/obama-xi-talk-rights-as-protesters-demand-end-to-oppression-in-china","title":{"rendered":"Obama, Xi Talk Rights as Protesters Demand End to Oppression in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

2015-09-25<\/p>\n

China\u2019s President Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington Friday to discuss a variety of issues, including human rights, as protesters massed outside, calling on Beijing to end its oppression of minorities and dissidents.<\/p>\n

In a joint press conference delivered after the meeting, Obama said the two leaders had held a \u201cfrank discussion\u201d on human rights, reaffirming U.S. support for freedom of assembly and expression, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expressed in candid terms our strong view that preventing journalists, lawyers, NGOs and civil society groups from operating freely, or closing churches and denying ethnic minorities equal treatment are all problematic \u2026 and actually prevent China and its people from realizing its full potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Xi said China is making \u201call-around efforts to deepen comprehensive reform, to build law-based governance, [and] to enforce strict party discipline\u201d in the interest of \u201cbuilding a society of initial prosperity in all respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that while democracy and human rights \u201care the common pursuit of mankind \u2026 we must recognize that countries have different historical processes and realities, and we need to respect people of all countries in the right to choose their own development path independently.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Xi, part of China\u2019s reemergence as a global player requires achieving \u201csocial equity and justice, and advancing human rights,\u201d and he expressed Beijing\u2019s willingness to further conduct rights dialogue with the U.S. so that the two nations might \u201cprogress together.\u201d<\/p>\n

While disagreeing over China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea, Obama and Xi also agreed to measure to combat global warming and halt commercial cyber-theft and announced agreements with on a military hotline and rules of behavior to govern air-to-air encounters between the two powers military aircraft.<\/p>\n

During the press conference, chants could be heard from about a block away from the South Lawn, where more than 200 pro-China supporters and anti-China protesters in two groups were separated from one another by metal barriers and police.<\/p>\n

The supporters, consisting largely of Chinese students based in the U.S. and members of Chinese-American associations, waved Chinese and American flags and called out pro-China slogans, welcoming Xi to the U.S. capital.<\/p>\n

The more animated protesters were made up of a variety of anti-Beijing organizations, including ethnic Uyghurs from northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tibetans and Chinese democracy campaigners.<\/p>\n

One group of activists called China Rights Now carried a banner that said in large letters: \u201cXi Jinping Let Freedom Ring\u201d with smaller letters underneath which read: \u201cfor Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oppressive policies<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>Anti-China protesters carry banners and flags outside the White House in Washington, Sept. 25, 2015. Credit: RFA<\/p>\n

A group of Uyghurs shouted slogans calling for freedom and human rights and greater autonomy in the Xinjiang region, where members of their minority complain of pervasive ethnic discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression by China\u2019s communist government.<\/p>\n

Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, questioned why Xi was being invited to the White House when he is responsible for the \u201cjailing of thousands and the killing of many others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese government arrested thousands of people during the 2009 protests in [the Xinjiang capital] Urumqi and sentenced [outspoken Uyghur academic] Ilham Tohiti to life in prison,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina has been carrying out its oppressive policies over the past 60 years, but when Xi rose to power, the number of forced disappearances and sentences without due process intensified. Today we call on China to release all political prisoners, including Uyghur, Tibetan and Chinese alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

T. Kumar, international advocacy director at London-based rights group Amnesty International, called on Obama to \u201cgive equal weight to human rights, along with business and tech issues\u201d during his meeting with Xi, saying to steer clear of the issue would be \u201can extreme failure\u201d for the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re concerned about thousands of political prisoners in Xinjiang,\u201d he said, as well as discrimination against Uyghurs in the region.<\/p>\n

China has vowed to crack down on the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang, but experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur “separatists” and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012.
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2015-09-25 China\u2019s President Xi Jinping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1175,1361,1364,103],"views":6522,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5688,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions\/5688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}