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And the award for Understated Segue of the Day goes to FP for this little gem:

"Towns around Daraa, [Syria] the southern city at the center of the protests, have reportedly been raided. A western suburb of Damascus has been cut off completely by government forces. Thousands of demonstrators have reportedly been arrested. Despite the crackdown, reports indicate that some demonstrations are continuing throughout the country. Syrian opposition groups say between 600 and 800 people have been killed since demonstrations began in March. Syria is now expected to drop its bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council." Emphasis mine.

Syria is reportedly considering a 2013 bid, and the optimist within me would like to believe that they'll take advantage of the delay to bring their own human rights record up to snuff--although there's not a lot of evidence to support that hope.

Granted, Syria wouldn't be the first country to sit on the UN Human Rights Council with a questionable human rights record, but its decision to drop its bid is telling. The move demonstrates a disconnect between domestic and international goals--as well as a disconnect between stated and demonstrated values.  This sense of disconnect isn't unique to Syria. The Washington Post today reports on two nations in similar straits: Libya and Bahrain.

Simon Denyer says that "Libya is simultaneously trying to play the roles of touch guy and victim in its dealings with the outside world as it unleashes venom and shellfire on its opponents but pleads for a cease-fire and dialogue." And Philip Kennicott states that "As international human rights groups and Western governments condemned Bahrain's reprisals against participants in the Arab Spring uprisings, one particularly cherished part of the country's image took a hard hit -- its reputation for promoting arts and culture."

Both articles underscore a divide between image projection and perception, between future goals and present realities--demonstrating the difficulty of controlling an international image in the face of domestic turmoil. Ordinarily I like to keep an open mind toward the workings of foreign cultures and societies, but in the case of human rights abuses like those we've seen documented in Libya and Bahrain, it's hard to be sympathetic.

I touched on the theme of international cooperation in yesterday's post, and it's one I've written on before. Multilateral action is an important component of traditional and public diplomacy because it promotes legitimacy (or at least the appearance of it), creates international bonds, and assists in the establishment or promotion of values and norms (van Ham's "social power"). And in terms of international norms and values, the UDHR principles have got to be at the top of the list.

Maybe it's my American upbringing, but in a word association test, the phrase "human rights" conjures up an instant response of "inviolable." The benefits of democracy and equality, and the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are truths that I've always held to be self-evident.As Secretary of State Clinton has said, "In democracies, respecting rights isn't a choice leaders make day by day; it is the reason they govern."

Protest of Champions

USA Today reports on protests at the Vancouver games:

Hundreds of protesters have converged on the Winter Olympics host city in search of a global stage for myriad causes — from opposition to the Olympic movement to a call for Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And while the tone of recent demonstrations have become more hard-edged than last week's community center laugh-fest — at least eight people were arrested and two police officers injured during weekend clashes — police are giving protesters some room to roam.

Vancouver's response offers a stark contrast to the harsh crackdown on dissenters that accompanied the Beijing Olympics, as documented by organizations like Amnesty International. As I've argued before, permitting dissent is the smart move for countries that support free speech -- but is suppressing it the best move for countries that don't?

Obviously the prohibition of free expression looks bad to any countries that support it, and as a fierce advocate of free speech and other UDHR values, I disapprove of it myself. But I'd still like to see some statistics on how much PR damage is done by suppression, versus the amount done by protesters. Like many aspects of public diplomacy, this one is difficult to measure, but there must be some evidence proving that curbing dissent is a bad policy move. Can anyone help?

Joe Nye, Soft Power Guy ... and China

This article from the Financial Times argues that future clashes between the United States and China (like the current Google dust up) are inevitable. Rachman cites the Google situation as a demonstration of misdirected foreign policy, noting that China has failed to develop into a liberal democracy, despite decades of free trade with the liberal democratic West.

Economically and politically, our countries are opposed in many ways, and China is particularly well suited to resist hard and soft power pressure to change. As I wrote in a paper recently, its leaders are not subject to electoral accountability and dissidents are silenced. Its geopolitical and economic strength enable China to resist many of the external pressures that might influence less powerful countries, and China's history demonstrates a fierce allegiance to its own sovereignty. China's immunity to public opinion is particularly notable in the case of non-state actors, such as NGOs which rely on methods like monitoring and petitioning to achieve their aims. Amnesty International, for example, has attempted to improve human rights around the world by shedding light on violations and shaming the offending actors. Its limited success in a country that suppresses dissent is hardly surprising.

Rachman's chief concern seems to be avoiding a trade war, an objective few would oppose. He argues for policy change, but despite his claims that "protectionism seems to be becoming intellectually respectable in the US in ways that should worry China," I don't believe U.S. businesses or politicians are on the brink of cutting ties with China, nor am I convinced that it's in their best interests to do so. Consider what happened when Bill Clinton, not long after the Tiananmen Square massacre, attempted to link U.S.-China trade with human rights. I'm not opposed to U.S. policy change, but at this stage in the game, I doubt an influx of new trade laws are going to have a transformative effect on Chinese culture or policy. That is to say I haven't got any easy solutions, just doubts and questions -- and it will take more than a quick Google search to find the answers.

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Soft power guru Joe Nye gave a presentation for the British Council today, and though my own question (submitted remotely) about confronting China did not, alas, make it past the moderator, the last lucky attendant to pose a question did address a similar issue. Nye's response was that the United States should be willing to help China define a broader understanding of their self-interest to include global goods. Great goal, but I still want specifics...