Human rights no longer a key issue in US-China exchanges

At Beijing's airport in 1997, Wei Jingsheng ate with his family, and was told his brutal choice: leave China forever, or go back to prison.

Nearly thirteen years later, he sat outside a swank restaurant in suburban Virginia, chain-smoking Gauloises cigarettes and drinking red wine. Just a few miles away, in Washington, DC, a Chinese delegation headed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Chen Xu was wrapping up the first day of a formal dialogue with US counterparts, about human rights.

Wei, one of the most prominent Chinese democracy advocates, says he owes his freedom to international pressure in support of human rights, especially from American leaders. Now disgruntled with the US engagement with China, he's a reminder of both the high stakes and the shortcomings of the exercise.

'There's no substance to the human rights dialogue,' said Wei, speaking in Mandarin with a strong Beijing accent. He never learned English, and a younger activist named Li Hongkuan bridges the gap with a reporter's broken Chinese. Li made his name in the US-based dissident community by spamming pro-democracy messages to early internet users in China.

On May 13 and 14, US officials led by assistant secretary of state Michael Posner met with the Chinese delegation behind closed doors in Washington. The dialogue was the first since May 2008 and since President Barack Obama took office.

At a time when the US relies on China as a crucial trade partner, and a necessary ally on issues like climate change and nuclear security, the Obama administration has come under fire from critics at home and abroad for putting concerns over human rights in China in the back seat.