Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, June 24, 1996

By Andrew Gray

BONN, June 24 (Reuter) - Germany on Monday called off a planned ministerial trip to China in a bid to cool down a heated diplomatic row over Beijing's human rights record in Tibet.

Bonn's decision to cancel Construction Minister Klaus Toepfer's trip came just a day after Beijing said it was withdrawing an invitation for Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel to visit China next month.

"Given the current situation, the government does not think it is appropriate for Toepfer to undertake the trip as planned," a construction ministry spokeswoman told reporters. Toepfer was due to depart for China next Sunday for a week-long trip.

Beijing said it was postponing Kinkel's visit in protest at a German parliamentary resolution, passed with all-party support on Thursday, accusing China of human rights abuses in Tibet.

A Bonn government spokesman said Chancellor Helmut Kohl viewed Beijing's response with "regret and incomprehension" and said the Chinese rebuff was unjustified. Kohl himself kept a low profile and declined to comment.

Officials in Bonn said they hoped postponing Toepfer's trip would help ease the political climate between the countries, which have clashed several times in the last few months.

Bilateral trade of some 27 billion marks ($17.6 billion) makes Germany China's biggest European trading partner, and Bonn officials are loath to undermine business when their export-dependent economy is under pressure.

Kinkel said he regretted Beijing's move but pleaded for restraint to prevent the dispute from escalating.

"I appeal to both sides to do everything possible to make sure this does not become a serious burden to our relations," he said. "They are too important for that."

But his appeal seemed to fall on deaf ears among the German media and other politicians. One of parliament's vice-presidents compared China's behaviour to that of an "adolescent schoolboy."

Members of the opposition Social Democrats said they wanted a parliamentary debate on Beijing's reaction this week.

Kinkel said that, contrary to Beijing's objections, the resolution's mention of Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile did not represent implicit support for independence for the Himalayan region from China.

"We'd like to see cultural autonomy there. We'd like talks to be held with the Dalai Lama and the resolution simply mentions that we support the efforts of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile for autonomy," he said.

"That is in no way recognition of Tibet. We want Tibet to continue to belong to China. There can be no doubt about that."

Earlier this month, after Chinese complaints, Germany withdrew official funding for a conference in Bonn on Tibet attended by the Dalai Lama. However, the government did not ban the privately organised meeting as Beijing requested.

China also blocked its artists from attending a cultural fair in Munich earlier this year to show its disapproval of a human-rights seminar taking place on the sidelines of the event.

Burkhard Hirsch, a member of Kinkel's Free Democrats and one of parliament's four vice-presidents, called on other European legislatures to pass similar resolutions to step up pressure on China.

He said it was a "shame that a great cultural nation like China" was "behaving as boorishly as an adolescent schoolboy."