This was put in 15 months ago, just during the period of explosive economic activity. And advocates believe freedoms in Hong Kong, China's primary business hub as of July 1, are at stake. Already Beijing has curtailed civil liberties there by making criticism of its policy on dissidents illegal. With politicians and business leaders reluctant to step up, researchers may be the last hope. Scientists, in fact, have a responsibility to help, argues Xiao Qiang, a physicist by training who heads Human Rights in China , based in New York City.
Science is an international enterprise that goes across borders, across races.
So Beijing may be more responsive to scholars' opinions rather than to direct political intervention, which is often viewed as meddling or posturing. But U.S. researchers as a whole lack the fervor that rights violations inspired during the cold war with the Soviet Union. Xiao draws similar conclusions. Such strident measures would probably backfire with China. So discussions of human rights rarely come up.