Jiang Promises China More Freedoms

By Jeremy Page

BEIJING (Reuters) - President Jiang Zemin promised Wednesday that China would give its people greater democracy, rights and freedoms in the 21st century.

``It is one of the common aspirations of mankind to fully enjoy human rights,'' Jiang said in a message to an Asia-Pacific human rights forum in Beijing shortly after the United States charged that rights abuse was getting much worse in China.

``In the 21st century, we will improve democracy, run the country according to law, ensure our people more extensive rights and freedoms and strive to build China into a strong and prosperous modernized country with a higher degree of democracy and civilization.''

Jiang, often the target of demonstrations by human rights campaigners when he travels to the West, sent the message to a three-day forum opened by United Nations rights chief Mary Robinson.

Robinson, due to hold talks with Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen Thursday, was on a two-day visit designed to help clear the way for Beijing to sign key international rights pacts.

She arrived just days after an annual State Department report said China's human rights record ``deteriorated markedly'' in 1999, citing suppression of religion, jailings of dissidents and political purges in Tibet.

Rights groups said this week that Chinese authorities beat to death a member of the banned Falun Gong movement, refused to deliver medicine to a sick dissident in jail and detained the parents of a Tibetan lama who escaped to India.

Robinson Avoids Criticising China

Robinson did not specifically refer to China's human rights record, but urged all countries to implement international rights pacts.

``We entered this century with an extensive array of international human rights norms and standards which governments have signed up to,'' she said.

``The challenge is to implement them at a national level by embedding a culture of human rights based on knowledge, understanding and participation by those whose human rights are being secured.''

China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees basic freedoms of religion, speech and assembly, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

But it has yet to ratify either pact and must harmonize its legislation to meet the international norms they enshrine.

``China's ratification and application of the Covenants would extend their protection to a quarter of the world's population. There can be no more concrete reaffirmation of the universality of the human rights enshrined in the Covenants,'' Robinson said in a statement last week.

Discrimination A Problem In Asia

Robinson highlighted sexual, religious and racial discrimination as major problem areas in Asia.

``There is persistent, and in some cases, escalating discrimination against minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants,'' she said.

Rights groups allege that human rights abuses are extensive against natives of China's remote western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, where ethnic minority groups are campaigning for independence.

Beijing strongly rejects criticism of its human rights record, pointing instead to the rapid increase in standards of living across China over the past two decades.

``Countries have different national conditions, therefore, it is only natural that they have differences in their approach to the promotion and protection of human rights,'' Qian told the forum.

``To develop the economy, eradicate poverty, promote development and realize prosperity is the common task confronting the Asia-Pacific countries,'' he said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday basic human rights were guaranteed under Chinese law, and accused the United States of overlooking its own human rights abuses.

Robinson's trip comes three weeks before the start of the annual U.N. Commission on Human Rights session at which the United States has pledged to back a resolution criticizing China.

All such attempts to censure China have failed since 1990, the first session after the killings of student protesters in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

• China Steps Up Attack on U.S. Report on Rights (February 27)
• China Rages at State Department Rights Report (February 26)