Tue 15 Apr 1997 - The Vancouver Sun - News - A1

By: Daphne Bramham, Sun Asia-Pacific Reporter

Illustration:

Color Photo: ``The timing was not our choice. The decision was forced on us and it was a very hard decision.'' - Raymond Chan

After six years of co-sponsoring a UN resolution condemning human rights abuses in China, Canada is withdrawing its support, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy said Monday.

The resolution was presented last week to the UN Human Rights Commission, whose 53 member countries are meeting in Geneva. Since the document is to be formally introduced today, Monday was effectively the deadline for Axworthy to decide on sponsorship.

He said Canada remains very concerned about human rights in China, but feels that because other traditional sponsors, including France, have backed away, the resolution doesn't have the same clout it once had.

"Under the circumstances, we concluded that Canada could have a greater influence on the state of human rights in China by pursuing and intensifying our promising bilateral measures," he said in Ottawa.

Roger Clark, secretary-general for Amnesty International Canada, scoffed at Axworthy's reasoning.

"I think that the line that's being developed, that somehow because there's been a weakening of the traditional coalition that Canada should take itself away from the entire process, is not the right way forward at all," he said.

Dennis Sung, president of the Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society, said the breakdown of the Western coalition that has supported the resolution since 1989 is ``very discouraging.''

``I think what Canada is trying to do is take a very pragmatic approach rather than a confrontational approach,'' he said. ``If you take a confrontational approach and they shut the door, you don't know what is going on inside. You have to have a tactful way of not letting them shut the door so you have no way of knowing or seeing what's going on inside.''

Raymond Chan, secretary of state for the Asia Pacific, said in a telephone interview from Ottawa: ``The timing was not our choice. The decision was forced on us and it was a very hard decision.

``The decision is not only difficult to explain politically, but the United Nations is a very important forum for Canada. And to give up that multilateral forum for bilateral work [with China on human rights] was a very difficult position to take.''

Canada has co-sponsored such resolutions with the European Union ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. France broke ranks earlier and Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece followed suit.

Australia also refused to co-sponsor the Danish-led resolution, although the United States, the United Kingdom and the remaining members of the European Union will stay on as co-sponsors.

With that coalition breaking down, Chan said Canada was forced to decide whether it should continue supporting the resolution and risk some of the bilateral agreements it has reached with China on improving human and civil rights.

Among the deals Chan highlighted were: China's agreement to come to Canada this year for multilateral talks on a broad range of issues, including political and civil rights, women's and children's rights, and religious freedoms; China's agreement to allow the Canadian Council of Churches representatives to go to Tibet later this year; and China's commitments to allow the International Red Cross to investigate prisons in China and the United Nations Human Rights Committee to look into torture in China.

Chan -- a former leader of the Vancouver Society in Support of the Democracy Movement in China -- said governments and activists have different concerns. He said activists want to raise the profile of human rights violations, while governments not only want to raise the profile of the abuses but work with the country to improve human rights.

``This is not a selling-out,'' he said. ``It's a tradeoff and both of the tradeoffs involve human rights.''

Chang Gang Jhang, the vice-president of Democracy China Ottawa, a grassroots group that regularly protests in front of the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, called the decision ``a setback in terms of pressure on China.''

He predicted China will avoid living up to its new agreements with Canada.

Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society's Sung called China ``a government that can not be considered to be very reasonable'' and one that ``takes very irrational measures'' if it believes its power is threatened.

But whether Canada's decision is the right one, Sung said, will only be determined over time. ``It is difficult to say whether this is the best route because we don't know how many trump cards Canada has in dealing with China.''