New York Times - April 16, 1997

GENEVA -- After a vigorous lobbying campaign that divided European nations, China on Tuesday defeated a resolution condemning its human rights record at a U.N. commission, preventing even debate on the issue.

It was the seventh consecutive year that resolutions assailing China have failed before the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Beijing's victory Tuesday, on a vote of 27 to 17, was by its widest margin ever.

Wu Jianmin, China's delegate, termed the vote "a victory for cooperation over confrontation." Earlier, in a speech to an audience packed in the wood-paneled U.N. meeting room, Wu labeled the resolution "an outrageous distortion of China's reality" and said it reflected Western attempts to "dominate China's fate."

He asserted that the Chinese people "had no human rights to speak of" before the Communists came to power in 1949, and he dismissed the resolution criticizing China's rights record and its treatment of Tibet as Western "impudence." He said China had followed its own course for 5,000 years and would continue to do so.

Wu said the West had a powerful interest in preserving China's stability, saying that if even 1 percent of his countrymen -- 12 million people -- were to flee, "the prosperity of East Asia would be destroyed overnight."

In Washington, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the United States regretted the vote.

"We recognize that no nation is perfect, and that none has all the answers," she said. "But we also believe that human rights are a legitimate subject for discussion among nations. On this, we differ with China."

Resolutions against China were first introduced at the commission in 1990 after the violent crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing. This year, diplomats said, China waged a particularly assertive campaign against the resolution.

France and Germany refused to co-sponsor the resolution condemning Beijing, prompting human rights groups to accuse France of softening its position in order to win a major plane deal when President Jacques Chirac visits China.

The Netherlands, which holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member European Union, then balked at introducing other human rights motions in protest at the French and German stand on China. It later relented.

"We've had disagreements before, but this is the first time we are hanging our dirty linen out because of such a disagreement," said the Dutch delegate, Peter van Wulfften Palthe. The resolution criticizing China was sponsored by Denmark and the United States. Denmark urged the 53 nations of the commission to hold China to the same rules as other member countries.

Tyge Lehmann, Denmark's delegate, said after the vote: "China conducted a rather aggressive campaign that has paid off. There were a lot of threats."

China announced before the vote that it was canceling some official visits with Denmark because of its sponsorship of the resolution. Unperturbed by Chinese actions, Lehmann pointed out that Denmark imports three times as many Chinese goods as it exports to China.

American officials insisted that the resolution had been a "matter of principle," and that Tuesday night's two-hour debate had helped keep the spotlight on China's human rights record.

Tuesday's vote was on a procedural motion that the United Nations take no action on the resolution. Nine countries, including Russia, abstained.