Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, June 26, 1996

Financial Times

June 26, 1996

Germany has trodden on one of China's most sensitive toes in its dispute over Tibet. There is no doubt that China has used unacceptable repression in Tibet, but, as with Taiwan, the government in Beijing regards its claim to sovereignty as an issue of paramount importance. It takes any challenge to that claim as unwarranted interference and a general attack on its own authority.

Bonn should thus have known that it had to proceed carefully, especially since China is particularly sensitive to what it regards as the crime of "splittism". One factor is the lack of self-confidence in Beijing, as the central government grapples with social and economic change. Another is an apparent increase in separatist tendencies, notably in the Moslem province of Xinjiang.

China may have difficulty in understanding that a democratic government cannot suppress a parliamentary resolution such as the Bundestag passed on Tibet. But Bonn fanned the flames with its willingness to put public money into a high-profile conference addressed by the Dalal Lama.

That is poor tactics if the main aim is to build a close economic relationship with an important trading partner. Public German protests will also do little to help the people of Tibet. But the debacle raises yet again the question of whether economic relations can be divorced from matters of legitimate concern to western voters such as human rights.

The US experience is instructive. President Clinton discovered early in his administration that linking trade privileges to human rights was counter-productive. Trade opportunities were sacri ficed for no compensating gain on human rights.

On the contrary, trade and the increasing prosperity that comes with it can be a civilising influence. Although trade embargoes may be justiiied in extreme cases, both sides will usually lose when trade policy decisions are taken on the basis of human rights rather than commercial criteria. This is the risk for Germany and China.

China has recently seemed to take an unhealthy pride in linking trade and investment deals to what it considers good political behaviour by its partners. But that is exactly what it complains the US did in seeking to link human rights to trade privileges, and it is an equally misguided and costly approach when applied by China. It will prevent deals from being considered on their intrinsic commercial merits, while, as Germany has now shown, trying to buy political favours with trade largesse can easily backfire.

Germany may fmd that the publicity given to the affair will spoil a constructive economic engagement with China. But it should not allow the anuument to stop it pursuing this course. China will always resist outside pressure, but rising prosperity may eventually prompt it to decide for itself that the time has come to treat with decency those over whom it now holds such brutal sway.