By James Pringle in Peking

The Times - London 15 Spetember 1995

CHINA'S. Deputy Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing, yesterday - summoned the American charge d'affaires to protest against a meeting in Washington between President Clinton and the Dalai Lama.

Supporters of the exiled Tibetan leader have held demonstrations during the Non-Governmental Organisations' Forum on Women, - and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women that ends today.

Mr Li told the acting Ambassador, Scott Hailford, that Tibet was part of Chinese territory and Tibetan affairs were purely an internal affair for China, according to Chen Jian, the Foreign Ministry' spokesman. Mr Chen gave a warning that the Washington meeting, which took place on Wednesday, could further strain ties between China and the United States.

"This represents connivance at and support for the Dalai's clamour for the independence of Tibet and his political activities aimed at splitting the motherland," Mr Chen said. "The Chinese Government and people express utmost indignation and strong displeasure at the US action, which has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

At the news briefing, Amnesty International, the human rights organisation, tried to deliver a petition calling for the release of two Chinese women prisoners of conscience. Mr Chen replied that he was "involved in output, not input".

The petition was on behalf of Gao Yu, a journalist sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly disclosing state secrets - Amnesty maintains her secret trial was unfair -and for a Tibetan Buddhist nun, Phuntsog Nyidron, serving 17 years for advocating Tibetan independence.

After the briefing, Casey Kelso of Amnesty told reporters he had tried to get an appointment with Chinese officials to hand over the petition but had been unsuccessful. Mr Kelso said his organisation was not singling out China for criticism and had delivered petitions to other embassies in Peking. As he spoke, loudspeakers at the briefing centre were turned on to full volume in an attempt to drown his comments.

Meanwhile, an eleventh-hour compromise on sexual freedom yesterday broke a deadlock on drafting the central Platform for Action at the conference, enabling proponents and opponents of new sexual rights to claim victory.

Avril Doyle, the leader of the Irish delegation, hailed a key human rights clause in the platform, the final document that will come from the conference. "For the first time ever in the United Nations, it's been recognised that sexual rights are human rights. The Islamics can sell this agreement in their countries with their own nuances and we can sell it to our countries in Europe," Ms Doyle said.

A senior UN official said the compromise resolved virtually all outstanding disputes over the language of the conference documents.

The deadlock arose because lesbians and bisexuals wanted the conference document to protect them from being dismissed from jobs, forced into marriages or deprived of their children by hostile courts. Their cause had been taken up by some European governments, and references to sexual orientation had already been included in the conference paper. But some delegations, particularly those from Muslim countries, could not countenance any acceptance of lesbianism.