When Hillary Clinton downplayed human rights as part of the U.S. agenda in dealing with Beijing during her visit to Asia last month, I was of two minds.

I understood editorials such as the one that ran in The Post blasting her for her statements. But I also empathized with the secretary because of the automaton-like quality of our interactions with Beijing over issues such as Tibet, Taiwan and, more broadly, human rights.

As she said: "We know what they are going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders."

Ultimately, I came to this wishy-washy conclusion: if you're going to tweak your human rights policy with China, you probably want to do it quietly. Unconfirmed reports this week that China is engaged in a human rights crackdown have, if anything, reinforced my belief that Clinton's public diplomacy last month was at best premature. Here's why.

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Here's a particularly smart story about the new "Great Game" being played out in Burma. I hate the cliche "Great Game," but this is a really interesting piece about how China, India and other major Asian players are turning Burma into a colony.

Bending to Chinese pressure, the government of South Africa has refused to allow the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a conference of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Two of South Africa's Nobel peace prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, pulled out of the conference, which was scheduled to start on Friday. The conference was subsequently postponed.

Back in Beijing, they must be congratulating themselves. South Africa, led by Nelson Mandela, once attempted to pursue one of the most creative policies vis-a-vis China. No longer. And therein lies a tale.

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Long-time US diplomat Hank Levine disagrees with my criticism of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent announcement that the US plans to downplay human rights with China. In a post on his new blog Levine takes me to task for disagreeing with Clinton's move to state publicly that the US will not aggressively defend human rights in China and that there are other more important things; the global economic crisis and global warming to name but two.

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I caught Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's speech at the Institute of International Economics this week. In the speech, he said basically that all the world's efforts to get out our financial mess would collapse if we adopted protectionist measures. No brainer.

But I wonder if he's saying one thing and doing another. Reports from Australia indicate that two big Chinese-owned firms are having trouble acquiring two large Australian companies.

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For decades the rest of the world has derided Americans for being ignorant about lots of things. Not least on that list has been our ignorance of how we affect the world. We think the world loves us, our critics say, but it doesn't. But now, the United States seems to have found a rival in the race to be the most insensitive country on earth. China!

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