With Beijing in the midst of unyielding crackdown on dissidents, how much can the latest round of U.S.-China human rights discussions, currently underway in Beijing, possibly hope to accomplish?

The prospect of Chinese and U.S. officials holding constructive talks on human rights didn’t seem so absurd in back in January. At the time, China was in the midst of an elaborate “soft power” push, rolling out an glossy national image ad on Times Square just as Chinese president Hu Jintao was making his way to the White House for a summit with Barack Obama.

At a press conference with Mr. Obama following the summit, Mr. Hu thrilled some top figures in Washington by admitting that “a lot still needs to be done in China, in terms of human rights” and indicating a willingness to discuss the issue with other countries.

That was then.

Spooked by anonymous online calls for a “Jasmine Revolution” in February, Beijing is in the midst of a crackdown on dissent that has seen dozens of writers, lawyers, artists, religious leaders and other and political activists arrested, detained or, in some cases, simply disappeared. Confronted with criticism over the sometimes extralegal measures taken to silence critics of the regime, China’s Foreign Ministry has been defiant, insisting foreign journalists and foreign countries should mind their own business.

Security, in other words, appears to have taken precedence over soft power.

Human rights talks between China and the U.S. are an on-again-off-again event. Beijing suspended the dialogues in 2004 in protest over a U.S-sponsored UN resolution criticizing China, agreed to resume the talks in 2008 then boycotted them again in 2009. The talks, when they actually occur, are known more for producing platitudes about the benefits of communicating than genuine breakthroughs, but the U.S. seems even less likely to win concessions from China this time around.

Ahead of the meetings, the U.S. laid out in blunt terms its concerns with challenges to human rights in China, saying in a statement that the discussions in Beijing would include “the recent negative trend of forced disappearances, extralegal detentions, and arrests and convictions,” among an array of other human rights issues.

While the recent crackdown gives the U.S. plenty of ammunition, Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, an NGO based in Hong Kong and New York, argues that China’s willingness to sacrifice its international reputation in pursuit of security could make things harder on the U.S.

“The U.S. has very few levers to push with,” Ms. Hom told China Real Time. Prior to the crackdown, the biggest advantage the U.S. possessed, she said, was “not economic and not political leverage. It was soft power.”

Beijing has spent lavishly in an effort to improve its image abroad. In addition to the Times Square ad, China has greatly expanded the international presence of state-controlled media and funded an extensive network of Confucius Institutes to promote the study of Mandarin abroad. It seems unlikely that Beijing’s current security concerns would cause it abandon that effort altogether. If anything, China’s willingness to participate in the talks shows it still wants to be seen as a reasonable power.

Yet the government has lately made virtually no effort to reconcile the current crackdown with the image it wants to project.

Comments at a regular news conference Tuesday by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman are perhaps the clearest indication yet that tough talk from the Chinese side will continue. “We oppose that any country interferes in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in response to a question about the human rights talks.

–Brian Spegele, with contributions from Josh Chin. Follow Brian on Twitter @bspegele.

Cumulative appreciation of the renminbi against the US dollar since the end of the dollar peg was more than 20% by late 2008, but the exchange rate has remained virtually pegged since the onset of the global financial crisis.

In 2009, China announced that by 2020 it would reduce carbon intensity 40% from 2005 levels.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.

China is the world’s largest producer of rice and is among the principal sources of wheat, corn (maize), tobacco, soybeans, peanuts (groundnuts), and cotton.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

By the early 1990s these subsidies began to be eliminated, in large part due to China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which carried with it requirements for further economic liberalization and deregulation.

Globally, foreign investment decreased by almost 40 percent last year amid the financial downturn and is expected to show only marginal growth this year.

Last year was the eighth consecutive year that the nation’s ODI had grown.

China reiterated the nation’s goals for the next decade – increasing market share of pure-electric and plug-in electric autos, building world-competitive auto makers and parts manufacturers in the energy-efficient auto sector as well as raising fuel-efficiency to world levels.

In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s.

Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving over 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas – especially in the west and north – limit cultivation to only about 10% of the land surface.

In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of oilseeds, silk, tea, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.

Sheep, cattle, and goats are the most common types of livestock.

Coal is the most abundant mineral (China ranks first in coal production); high-quality, easily mined coal is found throughout the country, but especially in the north and northeast.

China’s leading export minerals are tungsten, antimony, tin, magnesium, molybdenum, mercury, manganese, barite, and salt.

Hydroelectric projects exist in provinces served by major rivers where near-surface coal is not abundant.

Most of China’s large cities, like Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, are also the country’s main ports.

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U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue: Soft Power Gone Hard?