WH: Obama’s Internet Comments In China Most ‘Direct’ Human Rights Talk To Date

President Barack Obama
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White House aides traveling with President Obama on his trip abroad say his brief remarks on human rights and technology at the Shanghai town hall with Chinese students on Monday mark a key turning point in U.S.-China relations.

“I have never heard that kind of a discussion publicly in China before,” Jeff Bader, senior director of the National Security Council for Asian Affairs, told reporters traveling with Obama in Beijing. “This was as direct a discussion on human rights as I’ve seen by any high-level visitor with the Chinese.”

Bader said during private discussions with Chinese officials, Obama was “equally candid in describing human rights as a core, a fundamental, bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy.” He said Obama holds up the United Sates as an example while recognizing it remains an “unfinished project.”

“And there is a sense of pride and accomplishment mixed with a sense that we have shortcomings that we need to be honest with ourselves about,” Bader said.

Reporters asked about human rights issues that had touched the press corps, including the detention of a CNN reporter who held up an Obama-Mao t-shirt she learned had been banned in advance of the presidential visit.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said it was important to focus on the progress that’s been made so far.

“I did not expect, and I can speak authoritatively for the President on this, that we thought the waters would part and everything would change over the course of our almost two and a half day trip to China,” he said.

Ambassador Jon Huntsman, formerly the Republican governor of Utah, said Obama was “extremely forceful and comprehensive in hitting on every one of the major issues that we try to manage in our bilateral relationship.”

“As one observer and someone who takes this relationship seriously, as the on-site manager, I was very, very proud of our president,” Huntsman said. “And I would say I sense for the first time ever that we’re actually getting a little bit of traction on cooperation between the United States and China as it relates to reviewing a lot of issues that really do matter in terms of regional stability as it relates to Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Obama told reporters today that he spoke to President Hu Jintao about “America’s bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights.”

“We do not believe these principles are unique to America, but rather they are universal rights and that they should be available to all peoples, to all ethnic and religious minorities,” he said. “And our two countries agreed to continue to move this discussion forward in a human rights dialogue that is scheduled for early next year.

Also today Obama and his aides toured the Forbidden City. Wearing a brown leather jacket and bracing against a chill, Obama told his tour guides he wants to return to China with his daughters Sasha and Malia.

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