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It’s the first human rights dialogue with Chinese authorities for the Obama administration, and human rights groups are calling on the United States to press the Chinese regime on its human rights abuses.

According to Human Rights Watch, the human rights situation in China is deteriorating. In a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State, the NGO asks the U.S. government to raise pressing issues of, quote “gross human rights abuses” by the Chinese regime.

These include the regime’s intensified efforts to suppress human rights lawyers and dissidents, the arbitrary detention of people in illegal facilities, and a move to control NGOs and civil libertarians. Human Rights Watch is also calling on the U.S. government to establish benchmarks to monitor human rights in China.

Like other human rights dialogues involving the Chinese regime, the ones held today and tomorrow in Washington, D.C. are behind closed doors.

New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith says “accountability” needs to be stressed when dealing with the Chinese regime on human rights issues.

[Chris Smith, U.S. Congressman, New Jersey]:
“You need to hold governments, any government to account. It’s all about accountability. The standards are already established. Whether it be the gruesome issue of forced abortion, the gendercide that happens every day in the People’s Republic of China, the religious persecution against a whole group of people from the Falun Gong to the Catholics to the Christians, the Tibetan Buddhists, the Uighurs, across the board, the repression is accelerating.”

Zhang Erping, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Information Center says democratic countries around the world should not accept these closed door talks.

[Zhang Erping, Falun Dafa Information Center Spokesperson]:
“It is reported that the Chinese government seek to have a private dialogue on human rights issues, because they are afraid of the public exposure of what they have been doing with the citizens of China, especially the Falun Gong practitioners in China.”

Zhang says the Chinese regime’s persecution of Falun Gong is the biggest human rights atrocity going on in China today. He wants the United States to openly and frankly raise this issue with the Chinese regime.

California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher stressed, the closed door dialogue with the Chinese regime is not effective.

[Dana Rohrabacher, U.S. Congressman, California]:
“We need to treat them differently to how we treat democratic countries. Just having a dialogue isn’t going to make a difference. The United States has got to be willing to say, we are not going to have your goods produced by labor that doesn’t have the rights to organize to come into our country with the same tariffs and the same rights as people in democratic countries.”

According to Rohrabacher the United States will have to have a tougher policy that will pressure the Chinese regime to make a difference.