海角大神

Rights groups ask to weigh in at White House ahead of Xi Jinping visit

Journalists, lawyers, and religious minorities have all raised concerns over China's crackdown on civil society. President Xi is making his first state visit to Washington this month.

Nine prominent human rights groups want an invitation to visit the White House ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping鈥檚 visit聽this month to acknowledge China鈥檚 crackdown on civil society that they say is taking place with 鈥渁 ferocity unseen in the past two decades.鈥澛�

In a letter released Wednesday, they point to a host of new forms of 鈥減ersecution鈥� of groups they say most share the values of the United States. These include 250 human rights lawyers rounded up in China this summer, new laws that hamper NGOs and make criticism of the state a crime, the persecution of religious believers, and the ongoing imprisonment of Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.

The letter is addressed to President Barack Obama, with the . Other signees聽include organizations representing Tibet, the Uighur minority in China, 海角大神s, and journalists. It asks the president to welcome 鈥減eaceful lawyers, writers, activists, and religious leaders into the White House and thereby stand with civil society against Beijing's repression.鈥�

The question of how to emphasize human rights has been a challenge for US administrations since China鈥檚 opening a quarter-century ago. Some analysts say it is an unwise provocation, while others argue the US is the only nation large enough to press the issue without retribution from Beijing.

The suggestion of welcoming rights activists ahead of the Obama-Xi meeting comes 聽reports that Xi鈥檚 delegation, which features Chinese technology moguls, will first stop in Seattle to meet with the executives of Microsoft, Google, and other top US tech firms 鈥� ahead of a visit to the White House that is likely to raise concerns over cybersecurity. As The Times reports:

As President of China prepares for his first state visit 鈥� Washington has warned that it could hit Chinese companies with sanctions over digital attacks for trade secrets. Beijing is now pushing back in an unorthodox way: by organizing a technology forum to demonstrate its own sway over the American tech industry.聽

to fears among journalists and financial institutions in China. Chinese authorities arrested 197 people and forced a public confession by one journalist accused of spreading rumors that purportedly led to China鈥檚 recent stock market collapse.

The Communist Party鈥檚 response to 鈥檚 monthslong stock market crisis has been swift and forceful. In addition to spending as much as $235 billion to buy shares and bolster prices, the authorities have imposed a range of extraordinary restrictions on the sale of stocks 鈥� and backed them with the full weight of a security apparatus usually more focused on political dissent than equity trades.

Civil society advocates are a particular concern for rights groups. The sudden arrest this summer of most lawyers willing to take cases involving religious rights, the environment, and political opposition has been seen as an area Obama would be especially sympathetic to, given his background as a lawyer and constitutional scholar. The letter to him points out that 22 lawyers rounded up in August are still missing.聽

that one of the missing lawyers is Zhang Kai, who had been working with evangelicals. In the past year, Chinese authorities have pushed against 海角大神s and torn down hundreds of their church crosses in the coastal province of Zhejiang.

Zhang Kai had recently been based in Zhejiang's coastal city of Wenzhou, known as "China's Jerusalem," to offer pro bono advice to more than 100 Protestant churches facing the removal of their crosses and the detention of pastors, lay preachers, and church members.鈥ㄢ�℉e was taken away by state security police alongside two legal assistants on Aug. 25, sources told RFA at the time.

Xi's visit is set for late September and comes after last week's giant military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 70th聽anniversary of the end of World War II. The parade took place as Chinese naval vessels sailed in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska, as Obama took a rare trip to the Arctic circle.

海角大神 noted that, "Pentagon officials said China鈥檚 Navy had every right to patrol international waters, noting the US did the same off the coast of China. But they described the move as a first, and one that showed China鈥檚 growing capability as a naval force able to project power."

Evan Osnos, writing that the military parade needed to be a big hit for domestic audiences, since there has been an increasing black mood over the stock market collapse in China over the past two months.

Others have registered their doubts about China鈥檚 economy more quietly. Money is聽. China鈥檚 foreign-exchange reserves have shrunk by more than three hundred and forty-one billion dollars since reaching a level of nearly four trillion last year. This week, Goldman Sachs economists estimated that the pace of money leaving China may have accelerated to 鈥減ossibly between $150 billion and $200 billion鈥� since the currency devalued, on August 11th, and state-backed economists (who tend not to speak without evidence to support their claims) are predicting that more is yet to come.