Barack Obama risks China's ire with human rights remarks

The state visit by China's president, Hu Jintao, to the US was today overshadowed by Beijing's poor record on human rights, with Barack Obama twice referring to the matter in public.

The US president spoke about a need to recognise human rights during a ceremony on the White House lawn to welcome Hu at the start of his state visit, and again during a joint press conference.

The move indicates a toughening approach by Obama towards China after strained relations during the last 12 months over North Korea, Iran, the strength of the Chinese economy, and other issues.

Obama also called on China to engage in talks about Tibet with the Dalai Lama, saying he had been candid in his talks with Hu. He said that while he recognised the US and China were at different stages of development, there were fundamental values such as freedom of speech, religion and assembly that transcended culture.

Hu, who normally sticks to delivering speeches, faced a rare unscripted moment in the press conference. Asked by a US reporter about human rights, Obama gave a lengthy reply but Hu embarrassingly refused to answer.

Later at the press conference, another US reporter asked Hu why he had not answered the human rights question. Hu laughed and blamed a problem in translation, saying he had not realised the question was aimed at him, but he would now answer it.

He said China was committed to the protection of human rights and had made enormous progress in this area which had been recognised around the world. China was prepared to engage in dialogue with the US but based on mutual respect and non-interference in domestic politics.

Obama had dealt directly with China's poor human rights record. "History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are more successful and the world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being," Obama said.

The pointed comments on mutual respect suggested limits to Obama's ability to pressure China on human rights. Hu would like to have got through the four-day visit without any reference to human rights and to keep the focus instead on the pomp and ceremony associated with a state visit, the highlight of which was a state dinner scheduled at the White House later in the day.

But the visit is not going as smoothly as Hu would have liked. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, was provocative too, describing Hu yesterday as "a dictator".

Obama's comments on human rights were not initially shown on Chinese television or reported by state media.

"It is a slap in the face for Hu to raise human rights in the opening ceremony," said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher with the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. He added that the Chinese side had done everything it could to avoid such embarrassment.

Obama is taking a risk, given that the US regards China as its top foreign policy concern, especially with its dependence on China to help revive the US economy.

Hu, as a sweetener to the US, came bearing gifts in the shape of $45bn (£28bn) in trade deals, almost half of which came in a promise to buy Boeing aircraft.

The White House said that Obama, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2009, had planned to push Hu in private to release Liu Xiaobo, the dissident and 2010 Nobel peace prize-winner, and to discuss the fate of other political prisoners.

Pro-Tibet groups and others plan to follow Hu throughout his visit to Washington and later in the week to Chicago. Outside the White House and out of the hearing of Hu, about 200 people shouted "Killer, killer Hu Jintao". They expected their numbers to double later for the carrying of a coffin round the White House to symbolise the death of the Chinese Communist party.

Tensin Dolkar, a Tibetan-American and one of the leaders of the Students for a Free Tibet group, welcomed Obama's comments but added: "We hope that Obama will also raise Tibet because it is central to human rights." She said there were 800 known political prisoners in Tibet.

Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia studies at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations, said that Obama's remark would not necessarily be interpreted as a snub by Hu. "As both a winner of the Nobel peace prize and the president of the United States, it was incumbent upon Obama to make such a statement, and I think he did it in a way that was clear and compelling without being insulting," she said.

Shang Baojun, Liu's lawyer, said: "I hope [as a result of the visit] the Sino-US relationship can be more stable and develop in a better direction. I also hope changes and improvements can be made in certain areas, including human rights and the situation of prisoners of conscience, at least to create opportunities which will introduce a different voice to President Hu."