Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Hearing on U.S.-China Relations

Secretary Kelly

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Hearing on U.S.-China Relations

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HAGEL:
As you may know, Mr. Secretary, this committee had an opportunity to spend some time with the Dalai Lama yesterday. Give me your assessment of what we need to do more of, less of. Where are our most effective means, working with the Chinese, regarding human rights?

KELLY:
The human rights question has many different facets. And of course, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama represents one of those facets and the rights and the preservation and the culture of Tibetan people is very much on our minds and certainly, of course, it's a central concern of His Holiness that he's expressed to many people here in town.

We, of course, actively work by sending officials to Tibet as often as we can to see what the situation is on the ground.

Overall, in human rights, our effort has got to be less on announcing -- and I know this is Assistant Secretary Craner's view -- much less on announcing that we're going to have some talks in a few months, but seeing some progress both on some individuals -- there are a number of individuals. I would note Fong Fu Ming, Yang Jianli, Rebiya Kadeer, just three very different situations, right off the top of my head. And there are many others, including American citizens, such as Dr. Chuck Li, who are maintained as, in effect, political prisoners.

We want to emphasize some of these individual cases, but we want to also emphasize the rule of law and the larger situation, as well, including things that have been committed to, such as visits of international rapporteurs on torture, for example, that are part of the International Human Rights Committee that China had indicated very strongly to us that they would embrace and they have not done so. And it's very important, we believe, that these commitments be honored.

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Source: "FDCH TRANSCRIPTS".