http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/world/asia/obama-asia-human-rights.html 2016-09-07 22:27:31 Pressing Asia Agenda, Obama Treads Lightly on Human Rights Some advocates fear the topic has fallen off the American list of priorities in the region amid Beijing’s rise as a geopolitical power. === HANGZHOU, China — Human rights barely registered on And as Mr. Obama moved on to Laos for As China challenges the United States for influence in Asia, the administration is concerned that any criticism of nations like Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos for backsliding on human rights could alienate them rather than pulling them closer. At the same time, shining a spotlight on China’s own rough treatment of dissidents risks losing Beijing’s cooperation on issues like trade, climate change and nuclear proliferation. Rights advocates accused the administration of being too timid, arguing that the United States should put as much pressure on governments over how they treat their citizens as they do during trade negotiations. “Decades of experience should make clear to Washington that Beijing responds only to the expectation of unpleasant consequences,” said Sophie Richardson, the China director for Human Rights Watch. “Why not threaten sanctions, cut out the pointless pomp or visibly align with peaceful critics of the government?” she said. “On other diplomatic, economic and security issues, governments recognize and use these points of leverage. Why not on human rights?” Others say Mr. Obama, who speaks openly about civil rights in the United States, has been wise not to inject the issue into talks with China, even as Beijing has carried out the most sweeping “To its credit, the Obama administration has not exacerbated the many U.S.-China economic and security issues with a high-profile human rights policy,” said Robert S. Ross, a professor of political science at Boston College. “It is quite a stretch to argue that diplomacy could persuade an authoritarian, single-party government to undermine its domestic political power by allowing greater opposition to the government and tolerating greater political instability.” The pattern is now extending beyond China’s borders. During Mr. Obama’s visit to Laos, a tiny country run by a repressive Communist regime, he so far has chosen not to publicly raise the case of an American-trained civil rights worker who disappeared at a police checkpoint four years ago. He has refrained, at least in public, from criticizing the new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, who has been unapologetic about waging During Mr. Obama’s visit to Vietnam in May, he agreed to lift a longstanding ban on the sale of lethal weapons without winning significant concessions on human rights. And after trying to draw Malaysia closer, Mr. Obama has been embarrassed by the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak, who has closed online news outlets and prosecuted opposition figures in an effort to stay in power. The Obama administration has pressed China on human rights in a high-profile way on only a few occasions. In 2012, the American Embassy in Beijing harbored As the Chinese Communist Party gained confidence, it began rearresting dissidents who had been released before American summit meetings. “Since then,” Professor Ross said, “U.S. human rights diplomacy has been reduced to rhetoric, which, no surprise, has not improved China’s human rights situation.” Despite Mr. Obama’s fleeting public reference to religious repression this week, for example, few expect the Chinese authorities to retreat from a One of the new challenges for Mr. Obama, and one for his successor, will be how to deal with Mr. Duterte. The police in the Philippines say they have killed about 1,000 suspects in the antidrug campaign, and about 300 people have been killed by vigilantes. Rights groups have urged the United States to do something about the situation. “It’d be difficult for us to overstate how grave the situation has become in the Philippines,” said John Sifton, the deputy Washington director of Human Rights Watch. “At this rate, we’re talking about over 6,000 people dead by the end of the year.” But the Philippines is an American ally and a bulwark against Chinese military gains in the South China Sea. By that calculus, the United States cannot afford to alienate Mr. Duterte. Philippine analysts say that Mr. Duterte is on good terms with Chinese business executives who invested in Davao, the city where he served as mayor, and that he may be open to negotiating with Beijing over the South China Sea. Under American legislation known as the Leahy Amendment, Washington is obliged to cut off assistance to Philippines law enforcement units that are suspected of human rights abuses. But Antonio La Viña, a professor of government at Ateneo de Manila University, said the threat of such a sanction was unlikely to be effective. “The truth is that the Philippines has the money to modernize our military,” he said. Mr. Obama is the first sitting American president to visit But he is also being called on to press Laos’s repressive government — a traditional ally of China — on the case of One of Mr. Obama’s favorite Southeast Asian leaders, “She has demonstrated a recognition that this is a problem that must be solved,” said Tom Malinowski, the United States assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor. The Obama administration has been less vocal on conditions in Vietnam, which it has tried to steer closer to the United States in the face of Chinese pressure over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Since then, the human rights situation has only deteriorated, said “Should Obama have done more to try and influence the government of Vietnam?” Mr. Quang A asked. “Absolutely.”