US Won't Reproach China on Human Rights
(AP | Washington | April 11, 2003)
Two weeks after declaring that China had a poor human rights record, the State Department said Friday it will not seek a resolution criticizing China in the top United Nations (news - web sites) rights forum.
Spokesman Richard Boucher credited China with "some limited but significant progress" in protection of human rights, including the release of a number of political prisoners.
He said much remains to be done, adding that the administration will continue to press China's new government to improve its human rights record.
Since China's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tienenman Square in 1989, the United States has introduced China resolutions almost every year at the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Because of effective Chinese diplomacy, no such resolution has ever been approved in the 53-member commission.
Besides this year, no China resolutions were introduced in 1998 or 2002. The State Department report issued on March 31 cited a number of rights abuses, including "instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention and denial of due process."
Days after the report was released, China's State Council Information office dismissed the report as an amateurish collection of distortions and rumors.
It said the report was driven by "anti-China forces who don't want to see the existence of an increasingly wealthy and developed socialist state."
The State Department report took into account China's rights record for 2002. The decision on the China resolution reflected an assessment of China's rights performance to date. Officials said they detected several improvements this year, including loosened controls over the media.
Boucher said that, despite recent advances, the State Department believes that China's record remains poor, consistent with the conclusion of the March 12 report.
He said the decision on the Geneva resolution "was based on what we believe will best advance the cause of human rights in China with the new government in Beijing."
Sun Weide, a Chinese Embassy official, said the US decision was wise.
He said the differences between the two countries on rights matters "should act as a stimulus for communications and learning" between the two countries.
Diplomatically, the United States has been eager for China to pressure North Korea (news - web sites) to curb its nuclear weapons program. The officials said the US decision on the Geneva resolution was not in any significant way part of an attempt to earn Beijing's cooperation on the nuclear issue.
Mike Jendrzejczyk, Asia expert at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the refusal of either the United States or the European Union (news - web sites) to criticize China at the Geneva conference "undermines those trying to bring about change inside China."
William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said, "By failing to sponsor a resolution, the US is aiding China's evasion of scrutiny of its human rights record."
China, apparently weary of US criticisms of its rights record, issued a report of its own recently on the rights situation in the United States.
Issued days after the release of the State Department human rights report, the Chinese study accused the United States of turning a "blind eye to its serious violations of human rights on its own soil."
As problem areas, it identified high crime rates, infringements on constitutional rights, the dominant role of money in American politics, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and racial discrimination.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org