At Washington Meeting With Chinese, Obama Raises Religious Freedom Issue

Yesterday, the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue opened in Washington with some 200 Chinese officials in attendance. President Obama spoke at the conference which is co-chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. (Washington Post). Yesterday's Fresno Bee reports that the 2-day conference is part of a series of rotating meetings between top US and Chinese economic and foreign policy officials that began in the Bush administration. In his remarks opening the Conference yesterday (full text), President Obama made reference to human rights and religious freedom concerns:

[T]he United States respects the progress that China has made by lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Just as we respect China's ancient and remarkable culture, its remarkable achievements, we also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds. And that includes ethnic and religious minorities in China, as surely as it includes minorities within the United States.

Support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America. Our nation is made up of immigrants from every part of the world. We have protected our unity and struggled to perfect our union by extending basic rights to all our people. And those rights include the freedom to speak your mind, to worship your God, and to choose your leaders. These are not things that we seek to impose -- this is who we are. It guides our openness to one another and to the world.

The White House has posted a press release and video of the President's remarks.