Huntsman Speaks Out on Jailed Chinese Activists

The New York Times reports:

The departing American ambassador to China, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., criticized this country’s human rights record on Wednesday in some of the sharpest public comments here yet by an United States official since the Chinese government began a harsh crackdown on dissent this year.

Using a high-profile annual lecture on Chinese-American relations to make his final public address as ambassador, Mr. Huntsman said bluntly that prominent Chinese activists had been unfairly detained or jailed, naming Liu Xiaobo, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for “subversion,” and Ai Weiwei, the Beijing artist who was taken into custody Sunday.

Mr. Huntsman also accused China of wrongly imprisoning Feng Xue, an American geologist who was gathering information on the oil industry and accused of stealing “state secrets.”

“The United States will never stop supporting human rights because we believe in the fundamental struggle for human dignity and justice wherever it may occur,” said Mr. Huntsman, who leave his diplomatic post this month amid speculation he may seek the Republican nomination for president.

Foreign diplomats normally avoid such open criticism of Chinese policies and actions here, to avoid complicating relations and embarrassing top officials. That restraint is usually especially in play in forums drawing an elite domestic audience or major media attention.

But Mr. Huntsman’s speech, made one day after the State Department called for Mr. Ai’s immediate release, praised the artist and other prominent activists, saying they “challenged the Chinese government to serve the public in all cases at all times.”