2008-08-07 12:55:06 -
BEIJING (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush used some of his sternest language to knock China's human rights record in a big speech in the neighborhood on the day before Beijing finally unveils its Olympic Games.
Message delivered, mission accomplished. Now bring on the sports.
Analysts said Bush's speech, which also praised Beijing's regional leadership
and cautious social reforms, was carefully structured and timed to try to satisfy critics at home while respecting China's intense desire for a stain-free Olympics.
China responded tersely, but signaled it considered the matter over. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China firmly opposed «any words or acts that interfere in other countries internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues.
«Chinese government puts people first, and is dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens basic rights and freedom. Chinese citizens have freedom of religion. These are indisputable facts,» Qin said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.
Bush's speech came during what is essentially a farewell visit to the region before he leaves office early next year. It is unlikely to significantly alter the pragmatic and cautiously broadening relations between the world's current superpower and its emerging one, analysts said.
«Today, China and the U.S. are friends. Not best friends, but just friends,» said Ma Jianchun, an expert at the China University of Political Science and Law. «They need to cooperate with one another because they are both two very important countries.
In his speech, Bush was harsh about Beijing's rights record, saying the United States was firmly opposed to China's repression of its people and supported religious, press and other freedoms.
But political and economic disagreements were largely left on the shelf.
Sharp divisions remain over China's ballooning trade surplus with the U.S. and opposition to an American push for stronger U.N. sanctions to force Iran to cooperate with nuclear inspectors. U.S. critics accuse China of cultivating dictators in Burma and Sudan, artificially undervaluing its currency to keep its exports cheap, and offering weak protection for U.S. intellectual property while plundering commercial secrets.
But in contrast to past years, the sides seem intent on preventing any single issue from throwing off ties as a whole, seeking instead to isolate and manage their disputes through regular meetings termed «strategic dialogue.» The exchanges help boost communication while deflecting calls from Congress and others for more radical action.
Meanwhile, Washington and Beijing have found common ground in working to convince North Korea to mothball its nuclear programs, opposing global Islamic terrorism, and engaging on issues from global warming to high food prices.
Hosting the Olympics is a matter of fervent pride for China, something Bush has recognized.
The U.S. president committed last September to attending the games, and ignored appeals to shun the opening ceremony to show his disapproval of the communist regimes repression of Tibetan protesters. The gesture would not have gone unnoticed in Beijing.
China expert Elizabeth Economy said China likely saw Bush's speech on Thursday as an effort to assuage concerns in Congress and rights groups over his attendance at the games.
«But over the long term it won't really have an impact on U.S.-China relations or even on Chinese perceptions of President Bush,» Economy, Asia director at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, said in a conference call with reporters.
On earlier legs of his three-country sweep through Asia, Bush's agenda was heavy on weighty issues such as nuclear worries, political repression and recovery from natural disaster.
In Beijing, its mostly about sports.
«First message to the Chinese people is, I respect the Chinese people, respect the history, tradition. And I'm coming as the president of a friend, and I'm coming as a sportsman,» Bush said in an interview last week with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Sun Zhe, an expert on China-U.S. relations at Tsinghua University's Institute of International Studies, said Bush's attendance at the games _ the first by a sitting president outside the United States _ would overcome any lasting resentment.
«His visit to China will draw a relatively perfect conclusion to the China-US relationship under his presidency,» Sun said.
On Friday, Bush will open a new U.S. Embassy in Beijing _ a sprawling 10-acre (4-hectare) compound that is second in size only to the one in Baghdad. Its opening follows fast on the heels of that of a similarly vast Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C.
Although China has yet to formally pronounce on the end of the Bush era, Qin, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, took the long view in his statement.
«Facts prove again that although there is divergence between China and U.S., there is a wide range of common interests, and a basis for cooperation,» Qin said.
