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As China’s influence grows and the world looks to Beijing to play a constructive role as an international stakeholder, its growing resolve to silence its critics at home and abroad is raising concerns. And instead of achieving the apparent goal of silencing its critics, China’s actions are fueling a backlash, rights advocates said.
 
A top congressional body on China has urged President Barack Obama to make human rights a priority when he meets Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. 
 
In a letter to President Obama, U.S. Representative Christopher Smith and Senator Marco Rubio, co-chairmen of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, even suggested that Xi not be allowed to visit the capital again “without any accounting for the severe erosion of human rights and rule of law which has taken place on his watch and with his authorization.”
 
They also said there is a growing consensus that the pillars of U.S.-China policy are crumbling.
 
“Trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges have not brought political reforms or ensured human rights or made China a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system,” they said in the letter. “Rather, Beijing seems emboldened in its repression both at home and abroad.”
 
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