by Imbert Mathee, PI Pacific Rim Correspondent

Seattle Post Intelligencer

Tuesday, February 25, 1997

Human rights advocates reacted skeptically yesterday to a report that Chinese and U.S. negotiators are on the verge of settling their long-standing dispute over human rights.

The New York Times reported yesterday that the two sides have been working secretly for months on a deal in which Beijing would make several major concessions and the United States would agree to shelve its annual sponsorship of a United Nations resolution condemning China's human rights abuses.

Beijing would agree to sign two key U.N. covenants on human rights, release up to eight political dissidents and restart talks that could lead to Red Cross access to thousands of other Chinese prisoners of conscience, according to the report.

With the death last week of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, the agreement would give a new generation of Chinese leaders a chance to end a period of harsh repression that followed the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, the newspaper said.

But human rights activists said China has hinted before at imminent changes in its policies without following through. In addition, some of the concessions cited would not be enough for them to support easing U.S. pressure on Beijing, they said.

"I am very skeptical," said Chimie Yuthok, director of the Tibetan Rights Campaign's Seattle office. "We shouldn't take them on their word."

State Department officials called the newspaper's report inaccurate.

Officials at the Chinese Embassy could not be reached for comment.

Representatives for a human rights group in New York said that they have heard a deal is in the works but that its content may not be as substantive as it appears, and its conclusion may not come in time for the U.N. vote on the resolution in early April.

"China wants to give away as little as possible," said Sidney Jones, executive director of Human Rights Asia. "This deal does not indicate enough progress to warrant silence (from the Clinton administration)."

Signing the covenants on human rights and opening Chinese prisons to the Red Cross would be "significant steps" for China to improve its human rights policies, she said.

But the deal reportedly only commits China to submit the covenants for ratification by the People's Congress later this year and to restart negotiations for international access to dissidents, Jones said.

International access talks began several years ago without generating any results and became even less likely to succeed after President Clinton unlinked trade from human rights, she said.

China would also release prominent dissidents Wang Dan, Ulan Shovo and Chen Ziming and journalist Xi Yang. But Beijing would send Wang Dan into exile to the United States and free Shovo, a dissident from Inner Mongolia, at a time when his prison sentence is over anyway, Jones said.

With thousands of dissidents in jail, releasing a handful hardly seems like "substantive progress," she said.

Furthermore, Jones and Yuthok said it is unclear how Tibet figures into any human rights negotiations. China invaded the mountainous region in 1959 and has been accused of destroying its Buddhist culture and suppressing those who call for the area's independence.

Tsoltim Shakabpa, president of the Tibetan Association of Washington said his group will keep its pressure on the U.S. government until Tibet is independent, its prisoners are released, Chinese human rights violators have been brought to justice and Tibetans have been compensated for the occupation's damage. "China is silencing the United States forever from raising the issue of human rights violations in China," Shakabpa said. "What kind of a deal is that?"