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World Tibet Network Weekly Digest 6/2-6/8 1995
Contents
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1. Weekly Summary
2. China Says Acid Rain, Water Pollution Increasing
3. Dalai Lama Urges Aid for China Democracy Movement
4. China MFN renewal draws fire for rights abuses
5. EU Tibet Project Cancellation Call (TIN)
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1. Weekly Summary
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Industrial pollution of air and water is increasing according to China's
annual report on the environment. Acid rain is now a problem on the
Tibet-Qinghai plateau.
The Dalai Lama's statement, commemorating the June 4 Tiananmen Square
massacre, calls for international support for the pro-democracy movement.
The US has renewed China's Most Favored Nation status. While the EU
continues to examine its relationship to development projects in China.
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2. China Says Acid Rain, Water Pollution Increasing
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By Jane Macartney
BEIJING, June 2, 1995 (Reuter) - An industrial boom in rural China is
damaging the environment with three severe cases of pollution along one river
affecting hundreds of thousands of people, China said in an annual
environment report Friday.
"The problem of the environment has become a major factor curbing
economic growth and influencing the health of the people," the Xinhua news
agency said.
[...]
Last year, three severe pollution incidents in the Huaihe river area in
eastern China affected the lives of hundreds of thousand of local residents,
the report said. It gave no details of the damage.
The report said discharge of sulphur dioxide, smoke and soot had
increased with more cities suffering from acid rain than in 1993.
[...]
China, which relies on coal for 76 percent of its energy, ranks third
after the United States and Russian in carbon dioxide emissions, a major
"greenhouse gas" blamed for global warming.
Dirty coal also causes acid rain, most prevalent south of the Yantze
River, on the Tibet-Qinghai plateau and in central Sichuan. Figures from 77
cities showed 81.6 percent suffered from acid rain, with Changsha, capital of
central Hunan province, among the worst hit.
[...]
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3. Dalai Lama Urges Aid for China Democracy Movement
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BEIJING, June 4 (Reuter) - The Dalai Lama, exiled god-king of Tibet,
commemorated the sixth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on
Sunday with a call for international support for China's beleaguered
pro-democracy movement.
"I wish to pay my respect to those who died for freedom, democracy and
human rights for your great nation," he said in a message issued to China
from his home in exile at Dharamsala in India.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, just months after
Chinese troops swept into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to crush student-led
pro-democracy demonstrations, killing hundreds, said the crackdown had failed
to crush the movement.
"I believe strongly that the international community has an obligation
to isolate China and to promote its economic integration, he said, adding
that China should also be brought into the mainstream of world democracy.
"In the final analysis it is the dedicated and courageous members of the
Chinese democracy movement who will lead China into a future of freedom and
democracy and no one else," he said in his message.
"For that reason the Chinese democracy movement must be given every
possible assistance, encouragement and support."
He called for a non-violent movement to win democracy in China.
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since he fled Tibet in 1959
with tens of thousands of followers after an abortive uprising against the
Chinese.
He enraged Beijing last month by announcing unilaterally the recognition
of the reincarnation of the next Panchen Lama, the second most important monk
in Tibet, after China dragged its feet on the announcement.
Chinese searchers had been prepared on May 1 to announce their
confirmation of six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the reincarnation of the
Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, a Chinese expert in Tibetology said.
The announcement was held up by a dispute between Tibet and Chinese
authorities over whether the sixth and last proof -- drawing lots in front of
a Buddhist statue -- was necessary to confirm the boy as a living buddha, the
source said.
Chinese officials have unleashed a media blitz to discredit the exiled
god-king, but have stopped short of writing off the boy as a fake.
[...]
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4. China MFN renewal draws fire for rights abuses
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By Carol Giacomo
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuter) - President Bill Clinton on Friday extended
favourable trade benefits to Beijing for another year despite continued
problems with China in areas he once said mattered, drawing fire from human
rights activists.
Although insisting the decision was not linked to recent tensions with
China over Clinton's decision to let Taiwan's president visit the United
States, U.S. officials hope renewal of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade
status will help stabilise deeply troubled Sino-American relations.
The announcement stirred passions at home, with activists arguing the
worsening state of human rights in China over the past year had proved
Clinton's 1994 decision to renew MFN without regard to rights issues was a
mistake.
[...]
In formally announcing the MFN renewal, which for China comes up every
June 3, senior U.S. officials made clear they are unhappy with the human
rights situation there.
But they said the only legal criteria for renewing MFN concerns freedom
of emigration and "China continues to allow free emigration and open travel
overseas."
Still, "...we find China's record on human rights unacceptable," White
House spokesman Mike McCurry said.
"China continues to deny its citizens freedom of speech, association and
religion and fails to guarantee humane treatment of prisoners. Extrajudicial
arrest and detention remain common practices," he said in a written
statement.
[...]
There has been no movement on U.S. demands for religious freedom for
Tibet and a recent roundup of dissidents "has been particularly
discouraging," despite Beijing's earlier hints that separating MFN and rights
would aid improvements, he said.
[...]
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5. EU Tibet Project Cancellation Call (TIN)
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From: Tibet Information Network A major European development project in Tibet should be cancelled,
according to a committee of the European Parliament. Members of the
Parliament last month called only for the project's funding to be better
deployed, but now seem to be hardening their positions.
Cancellation of the proposed project would cut 50% off the European
Union's annual financial assistance to China, just at the time when the
Commission is planning to triple its aid to China as part of a new
effort to improve Europe's image and trading prospects there.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has now
concluded that the Panam County project "should not go ahead with any
finance from the European Union (EU)", accoridng to a letter it sent on
31st May to Sir Leon Brittan, the Commissioner in charge of external
economic relations with China.
The letter went further than the Parliament's resolution, passed on 18th
May, which had called on the Commission "to deploy resources from the
Panam Project to aid which will better serve the Tibetan people" and
instead to support "small local projects" run by non-governmental
organisations.
[...]
In his letter the Spanish MEP Abel Matutes, chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee, says that a major reason for the cancellation call was "the fact
that the main beneficiaries would be Chinese settlers rather than the
Tibetans themselves". The 5 year Panam project, designed to develop 3,600
hectares of irrigated land near Shigatse mainly for high yield agriculture,
has attracted controversy since it was first publicised in the London-based
newspaper "the Observer" in December 1994, in part because it seems designed
to increase wheat supplies for Chinese migrants in Tibetan towns.
[...]
- EC to Triple Aid to China -
The debate over the Tibet project comes as the Commission prepares a new
China policy in a document strongly flagged by Commissioner Brittan during a
visit to China on 18th April, his third trip there in 12 months. "The time
has come for a fresh start in relations between Europe and China", he said,
announcing the "major strategy paper", which is now not expected to appear
until July.
A draft of the document circulating in Brussels shows that the EU is
planning to launch a public relations effort to improve its image in China,
and that it plans to buy its way into China, tripling financial assistance
to Beijing from the current 20 million ECU per year - described as
"inadequate", and less than a quarter of EU aid to India - to 62 million by
1996.
[...]
Any sense of inadequacy in Europe will have been re-inforced by Beijing this
week, who, in confident mood, told Europe that it had to try harder and
would have to offer better financing conditions and lower prices if it
wanted to enter the "highly competitive socialist market economy". The
Chinese government complained that the EU was imposing discrimnatory limits
on Chinese export, according to the official magazine Beijing Review on
Monday. The actions of EU countries "have seriously impeded the further
expansion and progress of bilateral trade," the magazine said.
[...]
- Human Rights Effectiveness -
The draft paper refers to "serious restrictions" on civil rights in China
and places human rights "at the heart of EU policy world-wide", but insists
that any initiatives must be effective and not merely "frequent and strident
declarations". It proposes regular meetings on the subject with the Chinese,
which have already begun at Beijing's request, and plans to set up an
exchange programme for lawyers, judges and policemen.
This focus on human rights represents a change for the EU, which in its 1994
"Asia Strategy" paper had followed the US in placing human rights as
secondary to economics, describing the strategy as "inspired by the
assumption that economic development could bring about the progressive
construction of civil society and thus improve the exercise of human
rights".
Both the European Parliament's 18th May resolution on Tibet and the letter
from the Foreign Affairs Committee called on the Commission to make future
aid "conditional on respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms" in
Tibet. The EU's draft China policy document does not propose any linkage
with human rights.
[...]
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[end of WTN Weekly Summary
