(Reuters) - Human rights is one of the most contentious issues in U.S.-China ties and the two powers are holding a two-day dialogue in Beijing about the issue, where Washington has said it will speak strongly about Beijing's crackdown on dissent.
Here are some questions and answers about Chinese human rights, the dialogue and U.S. policy.
WHY IS HUMAN RIGHTS SUCH A CONTENTIOUS ISSUE?
The United States has a tradition of pressing other states, especially communist states, about their restrictions on citizens' political, legal and religious rights.
Communist Party-ruled China has been a focus of such criticism from the White House, Congress and U.S. groups, especially since 1989, when the Chinese army crushed student-led protests for democracy centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
In the United States, China's rights record can galvanize conservatives and liberals, religious groups, lawyers, and trade unionists, making for potent coalitions.
China has long rejected U.S. criticism as meddling and Cold War-style subversion. It has also honed counter-arguments: that the United States is hypocritical, that China is committed to its own version of human rights, and that providing basic subsistence and economic development takes priority over individual political rights.
The resulting friction can be volatile as U.S. criticisms overlap with worries about Chinese trade policies, mutual distrust over military intentions, and Chinese fears Washington is bent on overturning Communist Party rule.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CRITICISMS THAT CHINA FACES?
The United States, other Western governments, and human rights advocates in China and abroad have repeatedly criticized Beijing for a range of restrictions on citizens:
-- China's detention and jailing of dissidents and human rights advocates, often using sweeping state security laws and secretive Communist Party-run courts to punish critics.
Dozens of rights lawyers and activists have been arrested, detained or placed in secretive informal custody since February, when party fears of contagion from anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world triggered a crackdown by China's domestic security apparatus.
-- Re-education-through-labor camps. This imprisonment system is used to hold people for up to three years, or four years on extension, without trial or easy means to appeal.
Labor-reeducation allows police to sidestep courts and critics say the system violates international rules and China's own laws. The camps hold tens of thousands of people accused of prostitution, illegal drug use, theft and other offences, and also dissidents and protesters.
-- Tibet and Xinjiang. Beijing faces international criticism that it is repressing religion and legitimate political demands in these two western regions with large ethnic minority populations who feel little affinity with the rest of China.
-- The United States has urged China to lift restrictions on Christian, Muslim and other religious groups. China says it respects citizens' right to worship, but it also demands that they accept party oversight and limits.
Groups, such as a Protestant "house" church in Beijing that has recently challenged those limits and sought a permanent place of worship, risk detention or arrest.
WHAT IS THE HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE?
The United States, like a number of other Western governments, holds annual talks with China over human rights issues and it hopes the annual dialogue can be a way to influence Beijing.
But the U.S.-China talks have been stop-start. China and the United States resumed the dialogue in 2010 after Beijing refused to attend in 2009, reflecting anger over Washington's policies.
The talks were frozen from 2004 to 2008 over Chinese fury at the United States for sponsoring a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission criticizing Beijing.
WHAT APPROACH HAS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TAKEN?
Human rights have long jostled with other issues for attention when U.S. presidents meet their Chinese counterparts.
With China's growing economic and diplomatic clout, the agenda has even become more crowded and some critics have said the rights issue has been neglected under Obama.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became a target for such criticism in 2009, after she said discussing China's human rights should not interfere with cooperation over the financial crisis, climate change and security threats.
The Obama administration has since openly criticized China for detentions of dissidents, policies in Tibet and other contentious issues, and officials have also argued that sometimes quiet diplomacy can be more effective than public condemnation.
In January, President Barack Obama held a summit with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao and raised rights issues.
Obama not commented extensively in public on China's crackdown, however, perhaps calculating that turning the volume of public criticism up would simply harden Beijing's unyielding position.
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