Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, July 10 1996

China-Human Rights

By JOE McDONALD

Associated Press

BEIJING (July 10, 1996) -- A human rights group is accusing foreign governments of tolerating worsening Chinese abuses to protect business opportunities, and is calling on those nations to band together to demand better conditions.

China has stepped up arrests and persecution of democratic and religious activists, despite foreign claims that economic growth would increase tolerance, Human Rights Watch-Asia said in a report released today.

"Repression of nationalist and ethnic minority movements is the most severe in years ... and the numbers of executions in China are now greater than at any time since 1983," the report said.

At least one Tibetan monk was killed and as many as 90 arrested in May after a clash with Chinese officials who ordered a monastery to take down a banned picture of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, the report said.

Beijing denounces any criticism of its human rights record or actions in Tibet, which China's military annexed in 1950.

The Chinese last month called off a visit by Germany's foreign minister after German legislators passed a resolution calling for an end to repression in Tibet.

"China is increasingly using trade and diplomatic reprisals to silence human rights criticism, and governments around the world, when thus forced to choose between principle and profit, are putting business first," the report said.

It criticized President Clinton's decision in 1994 to stop linking China's human rights record and its access to U.S. markets as a "triumph of commercial diplomacy."

The report also said France, eager to sell Airbus jetliners to China, argued against a resolution by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights calling on Beijing to improve its human rights practices.

Human Rights Watch-Asia called for the United States and other members of the Group of Seven richest democracies to develop a joint, long-term strategy to press for improved human rights conditions.

It said they should demand that China give humanitarian groups access to prisoners, end imprisonment without trial, free inmates arbitrarily jailed for non-violent religious or political acts and ratify international human rights treaties.

The report also called on Chinese leaders to ease restrictions on religious activities, stop the demolition of churches and drop controls on religious publications.

Human Rights Watch-Asia warned that while foreign governments may ignore such abuses for financial reasons, repression could wind up hurting the business climate by damaging local economies and undermining faith in China's legal system.

The only positive development cited by the report was the approval in March of a new criminal procedure law by Chinese legislators, who are showing more awareness of the need for an impartial legal system.

Among other things, the law includes for the first time the principle that criminal suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

But Human Rights Watch-Asia cautioned that it wasn't clear the reforms would lead to changes in courtroom practices.