NGOs, activists fear Trump will not address human rights abuses in China

Human rights organizations and activists on Wednesday expressed fears that the United States president would not address alleged human rights abuses and restriction of freedom of expression in China during his visit to the country.

Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday for a two-day visit as part of his tour of Asia.

"I have low expectations for Trump's visit, and this is a view shared by many activists. But generally, Chinese activists continue to hope that the US would lead others in pressing China on human rights,"Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang told EFE.

Human rights defenders had hoped that the death of dissident Liu Xiaobo - who was not released from jail despite suffering from terminal cancer - on July 13 would help put the issue of the deterioration of human rights in China on Trump's agenda.

"There is a long list of political prisoners in a dire situation in China - Liu Xia, poet and widow of late Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, for example - but it is unlikely that Trump will mention their names," Wang added.

The program released by the White House suggests that Trump will focus on the North Korean crisis and economic matters in his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"Given President Trump's hostility towards human rights in general, and the fact that he consistently praises President Xi Jinping despite the latter's escalating crackdown on human rights in the past years, we have very low expectations about his visit to China," Wang explained.

Domestic and international human rights organizations have alleged on various occasions that since Xi's arrival to power, the suppression of critics and dissidents has intensified.

(All the rights of the contents (text, photo, video, multimedia products and others) included in the services supplied to the user in this test are EFE-EPA property and shall be reproduced under EFE-EPA @copyright. Contents shall be reproduced only in the terms agreed with EFE and by no mean can those be redistributed, transferred or traded. User shall be held responsible for the alteration or misuse of the contents and products included in EFE-EPA services. User is compelled to follow the national law and will be the only responsible for the use or misuse of the contents provided by EFE-EPA.)