There have been trade-offs like this for decades; at every turn, there is some competing priority that makes complete sense in the moment, just as it can seem pointless to press the Chinese Communist Party to move in a direction that they will surely resist. But the problem for people like me is being part of a broader enterprise that has allowed itself, over time, to see human rights as a secondary or even unattainable objective. That’s what the U.S. government—as well as American society writ large—has done with China since Tiananmen.
