Bush deserves credit for holding talks on Tuesday with five prominent Chinese dissidents, said the New York Times in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts:
President Bush is finally beginning to complain — gingerly — about China’s disgraceful wave of pre-Olympics repression. With the start of the 2008 Games less than two weeks away, we hope that he keeps speaking out and enlists others to join him, including world and corporate leaders and the International Olympic Committee — if that troubled organization is not already beyond redemption.
After playing Beijing’s game and declining to condemn China’s latest crackdown on critics and journalists, Bush deserves credit for holding talks on Tuesday with five prominent Chinese dissidents. Although the meeting was private, the White House announced it and said that President Bush spoke of his “concerns” about human rights in China. Bush also attended a separate meeting between his national security adviser and the Chinese foreign minister and advised how the Olympics present an “opportunity to demonstrate compassion on human rights and freedom.” The problem is that Bush’s approach is still too deferential given China’s reprehensible and defiant behavior.
On Wednesday, authorities confirmed that they will censor the Internet during the Games, violating previous assurances.
