And then, Mr. Obama departed for China, where the authorities stage-managed and restricted access to his town hall meeting in Shanghai. He did offer a nuanced, oblique critique of China’s rigid controls and restrictions of the Internet and free speech without mentioning, let alone condemning, China’s government.

Mr. Obama and President Hu Jintao presented their two days of talks as substantive, even though they did not appear to make much progress on issues like Iran, China’s currency or human rights. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, took the unusual step of sending a statement to reporters — something he did not do for either stop in Japan or Singapore — saying the China trip went well.

The town hall meeting has come in for criticism from Obama supporters who feel he soft-peddled his critique of censorship.  Adam Minter, over at Shanghai Scrap, was not happy:

It pains me to write this (I’m an Obama voter and donor), but Obama’s performance this afternoon reminded me of nothing so much as an overly coached American businessman on his first trip to China, so concerned about what he should or should not say that he forgets what he wanted to say in the first place, and ends up going home with nothing but a hotel bill and empty promises.

He was especially disturbed by this line of Obama’s:  “I’m a big supporter of non-censorship“  On its own that is a rather awkward formulation, suggesting that censorship is the baseline from which we work toward non-censorship.  It seems ilke conditional support for freedom of information.  But just before that, Obama said: “…I’ve always been a strong supporter of open Internet use.” And a bit later he said: “So I’m a big supporter of not restricting Internet use, Internet access, other information technologies like Twitter. The more open we are, the more we can communicate. And it also helps to draw the world together.“ These are more direct, clearer defenses of open exchange of information and ideas without censorship.  I suspect the “non-censorship” line was not a calculated expression.  He did not sit down with his aides ahead of time and say: “let’s use the term ‘non-censorship’ because that will be less challenging to the CCP.’  More likely, it was extemporaneous.  He was just riffing on the idea he had already established when he said:

….I’m a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity.

That is why the CCP limited access to the live video feed of the town hall (the trascript is available, however): they do not want to highlight this idea and the contrast that is obviously drawn here with the US.

I would not go so far as my friend David Shambaugh, who, according to Xinhua, was very positive on Obama’s visit:

“The joint statement released on Nov. 17 is an extremely positive document — filled with countless examples of tangible Sino-American cooperation on a large range of bilateral, regional, and global issues,” David Shambaugh, a George Washington University professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a written interview with Xinhua.
…

“In the document and the two presidents’ joint press statements, there was a very positive emphasis placed on the overall goal of creating a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship,” Shambaugh said.

He is referring to the long “U.S. – China Joint Statement” that outlined various and sundry issues, ranging from security to economics to environment.  It is a careful document.  It does not call unequivocally for improvement in human rights or for revaluation of the RMB or for sanctions on Iran.  Rather, it lays out an assortment of large and small matters that the two countries are working on together.  Neither state, it seems to me, comes away in an unambiguously superior position.  Each is tied to the other in many ways.  It is a description of interdependence.

And that is my main point here.  Those who see Obama’s performance in China as weak – i.e not pressing the PRC on any of a number of sensitive issues – are missing the larger structural reality.  The US is not so powerful that it can simply make demands of China without regard to its own vulnerabilities or weaknesses.  Take the currency issue, for example.  Has the US bees so responsible in managing its deficits and “imbalances” that it can easily and credibly demand that China take care of its surpluses and “imbalances”?  No.  The US has been flaunting its economic power for decades, avoiding painful adjustments and relying on China and other countries to finance our consumption and debt.  We’re really in no position to be dictating on this front, especially since the US needs the PRC more than ever to aid in global and American economic recovery.

Chris Nelson, of the Nelson Report (a DC political email letter) has a reaction to the negative commentary similar to my own:

We take issue with the tone and content of this sort of China coverage for the basic reason that no one outside the Central Committee denies there are real problems with the PRC on human rights, currency, Taiwan, Tibet, industrial policy, clean energy, climate change, espionage way beyond the norm, transparency on PLA expansion, et al.

And really troubling “new” issues such as China’s attempt to corner the world market on “rare earth minerals” (without which the computer age would come to a crashing halt) are surely right up there in the international “stakeholder” world with Iran and N. Korean nukes.

(See the US-China Economic & Security Review Commission annual report discussion, coming Thursday…)

So the real question and dilemma facing Obama is…does he want to try and get China to address all these problems constructively?  (Answer: hell, yes!)

OK, then, how do you deal with this long list of concerns and grievances?

Apparently the media expectation/demand is temper tantrums, public feel-good posturing, bellicose speeches about what China “must” do, and dancing the hula with the Dalai Lama.

Get a grip!

Obama said, going in, and has consistently demonstrated for the past week, that he’s trying a new style of communication and body language, if you will (see the much-discussed “bow” to Emperor Akihito) designed to facilitate serious discussion, with serious people, about serious issues.

Obama went to China. In Shanghai he said that freedom of information is a good thing that makes a country strong, thus implying that the PRC should open up more. In Beijing, with President Hu Jintao standing by his side, he said that human rights matter.  He said that the PRC should talk with the Dalai Lama.  He mentioned the Taiwan Relations Act.  He did not posture like a cowboy.  He did not hector.  He began a serious engagement with serious people about serious issues.

“All good things must come to an end,” an emotional Barrett said during his concession speech.  “I had a bad feeling this afternoon, when I saw people going to the polls. I saw a different voter going to the polls — a younger voter. I used to joke at the conferences I speak at that the people I’ve brought here — with all the changes we’ve made — were going to be the ones to vote me out. That day has come. This was just one election I couldn’t grasp. We got our message out there, but they just didn’t want to listen.”

Congratulations to the new mayor,  Richard Alcombright.

For analysis of other races, The Monkey Cage has a few posts.  I liked this one, by Marc Hetherington:

The race in New York’s 23rd congressional district exemplifies the disconnect between polarized political elites and much of the American public, which like moderate alternatives when they are available. Movement conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh attacked the moderation of Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee, ultimately driving her from the race and causing her to endorse Bill Owens, her Democratic counterpart. This opened the door for the first Democratic victory in the district in more than 100 years. It seems very likely that, others things being equal, a candidate like Scozzafava would have been the choice over Owens in a two person race. The district choked on the type of candidate that Palin and Limbaugh favored.

The guys at FiveThirtyEight are good with the numbers.

bifurcation of human rights

Monique Deveaux*

Department of Political Science, Schapiro Hall, Williams College, MA, USA

Abstract

This article argues that liberal arguments for human rights minimalism, such as those of John

Rawls and Michael Ignatieff , contain fundamental inconsistencies in their treatment of core rights

to life and liber ty. Insofar as their versions of minimalism foreground rights to physical security and

basic freedom of movement, they cannot coherently exclude cer tain social and economic

protections and liber ties that directly suppor t or are even partly constitutive of these rights. Nor

do they have good grounds for putting the social and private realms wholly beyond the pur view of

international law. ‘New’ human rights that represent an expansion of civil rights in particular

beyond the classic conception to encompass, for example, the right to freedom from sexual and

gender-based violence, illustrate especially well the extent to which civil, social, and economic

rights violations, and their remedies, are deeply interwoven. These emergent rights also directly

challenge the dichotomy between the public/political and private/social realms, and the corollar y

assumption that human rights violations occur mainly or exclusively in the former sphere. While

the concerns that motivate arguments for human rights minimalism*considerations of pluralism

and prudence*are legitimate, proponents would do best to reconsider the multiple roles that

human rights in fact play, in spite of their essentially contested status.

Keywords: human r ights; sexual and gender-based violence; social and economic r ights;

civil liberties; John Rawls; Michael Ignatieff; domestic violence; human trafficking; public

and private

Ethics & Global Politics

Vol. 2, No. 3, 2009, pp. 171

http://www.ethicsandglobalpolitics.net/index.php/egp/article/view/2055

Some numbers are just too much . . .

350ppm is the number that leading scientists say is the safe, stable upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

We’re past it, and rising. However, with swift action it’s not too late to reduce our collective emissions levels.

The rest of the text invites students to attend a jumping-into-a-pile-of-leaves celebration of International Day of Climate Action on Saturday the 24th, the goal being to “call on world leaders to pass climate policies grounded in the latest science and strong enough to get us back to 350.”

There is no doubt that global climate change is among the most important social issues of our day. There is also no doubt that optimism is much to be preferred over pessimism. These things being said, a dose of realism is always necessary, and realism begs the question “is it truly not too late?”

The UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2007/08 is organized around the theme “Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world”. Relying on climate models developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – THE “leading scientists” on the issue – the UNDP presents six possible scenarios for global temperature and CO₂ levels projected to the year 2100. The most pessimistic scenario, given the catchy title ‘A1FI’, assumes “rapid economic and population growth combined with reliance on fossil fuels”. If this is our collective future, the IPCC says that by the end of the century its best estimate is a CO₂ level of a whopping 1550ppm with a global average temperature change of +4.5°C (relative to the preindustrial era) and possibly as high as +6.9°C. With +2°C defined as the threshold for “dangerous climate change,” this is a pretty scary scenario.

Quite frankly, however, the IPCC doesn’t offer us any non-scary scenarios. The most optimistic, titled ‘B1’ (“some mitigation of emissions through increased resource efficiency and technology improvement” in the absence of “rapid economic and population growth”) projects CO₂ stabilization at century’s end at 600ppm, with a best estimate global average temperature change of +2.3°C over preindustrial levels.

Because future greenhouse gas stocks are determined by past greenhouse gas emissions, even stabilizing emission levels this very moment will still result in a significant rise in future CO₂ levels: +200ppm by 2100 even if we stabilized at year 2000 emission levels. To make a +2°C temperature change “unlikely,” the world’s CO₂ ceiling is 350 ppm — the goal of the folks behind the International Day of Climate Action and, as the flier admits, a level we’ve already breached. To make a +2°C change of “medium likelihood,” the world must limit itself to 400 ppm. If our goal is even more limited — simply to stay away from a “very likely” +2°C — we still are allowed just 450ppm. At 650ppm, +2°C is virtually guaranteed.

The 2007/08 Human Development Report lays out an ambitious CO₂ reduction strategy: a 500ppm peak and stabilization at 450ppm by 2100. This is some ways above the 350ppm goal mentioned above, but even this UNDP plan is extremely ambitious. To achieve the 450ppm goal, the UNDP prescribes CO₂ emission cuts for the developed countries from a base year 1990 of [1] 30% by the year 2030 and [2] of 80% by 2050. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, as of 2007 the US was +20.2% from our 1990 levels. That means that using 2007 as our baseline, the US will have to cut CO₂ emissions a whopping 42% by the time Williams students are my age, and this just to dwell in the “medium likelihood” territory for dangerous climate change.

The world’s only examples of greenhouse gas emission reductions of such an incredible and rapid scale involve catastrophic economic collapse, such as in Ukraine since the fall of communism where emissions fell (-55% from 1990 to 2004) alongside absolute declines in population, life expectancy and real GDP per capita. I’m assuming this is not quite what the organizers of the International Day of Climate Action have in mind. Yet a realistic 350ppm scenario which does not involve a serious and lasting global depression exists only in the pages of a Tom Friedman book.

It’s good to be optimistic, and it’s good to take up a challenge in the face of long odds. At the same time, it is very important for everyone concerned about climate change to put at least as much effort into preparing to alleviate the suffering which will result from inevitable catastrophes as into struggling heroically to prevent them.

I thought this one was brilliant:

From: “Yamashita, Kelly (ENRD)” <Kelly.Yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov">Kelly.Yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov>
Date: October 19, 2009 11:48:28 AM EDT
To: <kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov">kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov>
Subject: Dept of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources – Internship reminder

To Career Services, Environmental Studies, Political Science, and Washington D.C. Internship contacts,

Please remind your students about the Winter 2010 and Spring 2010 internship positions for the Department of Justice (Environment and Natural Resources Division), Law and Policy Section.  I previously sent an internship announcement in August 2009.  The internship has already been posted on several individual school job posting services as well as consortium databases but I would appreciate if you could alert your students to this opportunity again.

We are looking for highly motivated students with strong writing skills and interests in law, public policy and environmental issues.  Please note that the Winter 2010 deadline is November 6, 2009 and the Spring 2010 deadline is January 8, 2010.  Below is the internship announcement for your reference.  Feel free to contact me at kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov">kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov with any questions.

Thank you,

Kelly Yamashita
Paralegal Specialist
Department of Justice (ENRD)
Law and Policy Section
202-305-0641
kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov">kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov

Intern Position Available

U.S. Department of Justice
Environment and Natural Resources Division
Law and Policy Section

The Law and Policy Section (LPS) advises and assists the Assistant Attorney General on legal and policy issues.  Working with the Office of Legislative Affairs, LPS coordinates the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s legislative program.  LPS also represents the Department of Justice on interagency groups of a variety of issues that relate to the mission of the Division.  LPS also litigates amicus cases and undertakes other specially assigned litigation projects at the trial and appellate levels. Other duties include monitoring citizen suits; responding to citizen mail, congressional, and FOIA requests; and serving as the Division’s ethics officers.  LPS attorneys also coordinate the Division’s activities on international environmental matters and environmental justice matters.

Duties of the unpaid undergraduate intern position include: attending congressional hearings and reporting on environmental legislation; researching legal and policy issues; and providing support for the section’s amicus litigation.

Applicants must be U.S. citizens, pass a mandatory background check, and be willing to commit for a period of at least ten weeks.  Applicants should be either enrolled as undergraduates during the internship, or planning on returning to their school in the time period following the conclusion of the internship.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis but must be received no later than the following application deadlines:

- For Winter Internships (January-March 2010, dates flexible): November 6, 2009;
- For Spring Internships (March-May 2010, dates flexible): January 8, 2010.

To apply, please fax a cover letter, resume, unofficial transcript, and 3-5 page writing sample (may be an excerpt from a longer paper on any topic) to Kelly Yamashita at (202) 514-4231, or mail the above to:

Kelly Yamashita
Environment and Natural Resources Division / LPS
P.O. Box 4390
Ben Franklin Station
Washington, DC 20044-4390

For more information, please email kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov">kelly.yamashita {at} usdoj(.)gov