(Xinhua is the official news agency of the People's Republic of China)

Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 1640 gmt 5 Feb 97

At a meeting in Beijing on 5th February, Chinese academics debated and refuted the US government's report on human rights. Several scholars said the report was an example of some countries working to " demonize" China. One academic argued that "in fact, the Chinese constitution contains more articles on human rights protection than the American constitution does and the Chinese stipulations and measures are more concrete" . Statistics on American crime and prison populations were produced to show that the US judicial system was unable "to compete with Chinese justice in cracking down on crimes and safeguarding individual human rights and citizens' freedoms" and thus "the US government is not qualified to find fault with China in this respect" . The following is the text of a report by Xinhua news agency:

Beijing, 5th February: A group of Chinese scholars have strongly criticized the US State Department Human Rights Country Reports for the year 1996, which was released last week.

At a seminar in Beijing today [5th February], the scholars maintained that the January 30 State Department report violates the goals and basic principles of the UN Charter and completely ignores the progress that China has made in protecting human rights.

This malicious and slanderous attack on China's human rights record only serves to expose its real intention of interfering in other countries'internal affairs under the excuse of human rights, according to human rights researchers and experts in the fields of history, philosophy, law, social sciences and journalism.

"The report is full of groundless accusations and intentional fabrications," Tian Dan, deputy secretary-general of the China Society for the Study of Human Rights, commented. He cited the report' s allegation that "Chinese authorities also detained foreigners visiting Tibet, searched them", claiming that a visiting foreign scholar, Ngawang Choephel, was detained by Chinese authorities and sentenced to 18 years in prison for making a documentary film about Tibetan's performing arts.

The facts, however, are somewhat different. According to Tian, the 30-year-old native of the Zanda County of Tibet's Ngari Prefecture, who used to be a teacher in the song and dance troupe of the Dalai Lama's "government in exile", was sent by the Dalai Lama clique in July of 1995 to gather information in Tibet under the guise of making a documentary about Tibetan performing arts, with equipment and funding provided by a certain country.

Ngawang Choephel followed an 'outline for intelligence gathering' that had been prepared, in Lhasa, Shanna, Nyingchi and Xigaze in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Chinese security departments obtained ample evidence to prove the espionage charge and arrested him in accordance with the law, Tian noted.

Ngawang Cheophel confessed to his wrongdoing, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Xigaze Intermediate People's Court. He was also deprived of his political rights for four years, Tian noted.

After the initial ruling, Ngawang Cheophel, appealed the sentence to a higher court and the second hearing is going on, Tian noted.

"Criminals like Ngawang Cheophel, who endanger state security and engage in espionage, would be punished in accordance with the law in any country with a sound legal system," Tian pointed out.

"It is a complete distortion of the truth for the United States government to call a person engaging in espionage as a visiting scholar and his punishment an example of China's violation of human rights," Tian said.

Tian gave another example of the US government's accusing China of intolerance in relation to human right groups in the report, claiming that Wang Dan was given an 11-year prison term in 1996 for intending to investigate human rights conditions in China in 1994.

In fact, Tian said, Wang's conviction was upheld because of his activities where he intended to "conspire to subvert the government", something that was backed by evidence provided by Wang himself.

"The United State government was expecting to repeat its lies so often that it would make it sound real," Tian explained.

A number of scholars pointed out that the so-called "evidence" provided by the report was mainly based on Western media reports, the statements of overseas "democratic movement activists", and on distortions of speeches of Chinese officials.

A human rights report based on this kind of "evidence" obviously arises from ulterior motives and is irresponsible, he said.

Dong Yunhu, a professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, said that the United States government in its report found fault with China for "violation of internationally accepted norms", and "absence or inadequacy of laws providing for fundamental human rights" .

In fact, the Chinese constitution contains more articles on human rights protection than the American constitution does and the Chinese stipulations and measures are more concrete. "The US side is simply not qualified to comment on human rights protection in China," Dong noted.

The constitution of the United States does not even acknowledge economic, social and cultural rights as part of human rights, and still does not provide for the principle of ethnic and sexual equality, as well as equality of rights for all citizens, Dong said.

There is not one word in its constitution calling for or entitling the government to promote human rights, he added.

"The United States' constitution is below the international level in terms of human rights protection," Dong quoted a US constitutional scholar as saying.

The United States tops the world in violent crimes, which victimize six million people annually and kill 24,000 of its citizens, according to a recent US report. The death rate from violent crimes is ten times that of China.

There are currently over 1.63 million inmates in the country, or 6.15 per thousand of the total population, and over 5.36 million people or 2.8 per cent of the adult population serving a sentence at the moment, according to latest official US statistics.

"The figures are times higher than those in China," Dong said, adding that "this demonstrates the judicial system's inability to compete with Chinese justice in cracking down on crimes and safeguarding individual human rights and citizens' freedoms, and that the US government is not qualified to find fault with China in this respect."

Liu Wenzong, a professor at the Foreign Affairs Institute of China, and Liu Nanlai, a research fellow with the China Academy of Social Sciences, said that the world is made up of sovereign states and that one state cannot put itself above another.

The US State Department has been issuing yearly Human Rights Reports, they pointed out, making unreasonable accusations against other countries but without saying just which international organization, international conference, or country has given it the right to be " human rights judge of the world" .

The US government is not "a government of the world, nor does it have the status or the right to spread irresponsible comments and accusations against others," Liu Wengzong said.

What is more, the United States itself is plagued with notorious racial discrimination, violence, terrorism, an AIDS outbreak, an increasing number of single parent families, homeless people, prejudice against women, abuse of children and other human rights woes, Liu Nanlai said.

Its criticisms have no legal, moral or factual basis and are bound to meet with opposition from an increasing number of countries, and strong condemnation from the entire international community, he said.

Tian Jin, a research fellow at the China Centre of International Studies, pointed out that in recent years, when the United States maliciously attacked China's human rights situation, China has made overall progress in human rights undertakings.

As a populous yet economically under-developed country, China has taken great efforts towards the protection of human rights, making world-acknowledged achievements, he noted. In 1996, on the basis of sustained and rapid economic development, China strengthened the building of democracy and the legal system. In particular, he added, work on grassroots democracy and amendments to the "Criminal Procedural Law" won praise from the world in general.

"It set people thinking that the US ignored all those basic facts and distorted China's image as one with a worsening human rights situation," he said.

Huang Nansen, a professor at Beijing University, said that the US Human Rights Report, which refers to China as a "hell", serves as a " masterpiece" of "demonizing China" by anti-China forces in the world, and "reflected the US authorities' anti-China mentality marked by antipathy and gloom."

Professor Zhang Hongyi, of Beijing Normal University, pointed to the political prejudice of the US report, noting that the crux of the problem is that, as long as China keeps its socialist system, the US will see it as an "authoritarian state" with no human rights to speak of.

Xiong Lei, the deputy director of the Beijing Women Journalists Association, said that US real interest lies in its attempt to impose the human rights problem on and then demonize China, so as to justify its malice towards China. "While the US strives to impose its "format of democracy" upon other countries, the practice itself is extremely undemocratic," she added.

Zhou Jue, the deputy director of the China Society for the Study of Human Rights, who presided over the seminar, noted that the US report, instead of evaluating China's human rights situation in an objective and fair way, lauded a small number of criminals who violated the interests of the broad masses of people as "fighters for human rights" .

This shows that the US true purpose is to interfere in China's internal affairs, to vilify China and to contain China's development. he concluded.

The US State Department keeps issuing the yearly reports, passing judgement on the human rights situations in the world according to its own standards, he said, adding that such provocative practice runs against trends of development and impedes the development of human rights in the world, Zhou said.