Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS 1 October 1997

AGENCIES in Washington, 10/1/97

A House of Representatives panel voted to increase funding for US government-sponsored radio broadcasts to the mainland and to improve monitoring by American diplomatic posts there of human rights violations.

"One of the great deficiencies in our own embassy in Beijing and in our consulates is a lack of personnel dedicated to monitoring human rights in that very large country," said Representative Chris Smith, one of the co-sponsors of the measure.

The US$2.2 million (HK$17 million) authorised by the bill for each of the next two years would pay for 10 to 20 additional officials in the embassy in Beijing and in consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu and Hong Kong.

China last night criticised the bill as "meddling by the United States".

"The original intention of setting up Radio Free Asia was to use freedom of speech as a reason, or excuse, to interfere in the internal politics of Asian countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cui Tiankai said.

In its introductory section, the bill says that only one diplomat in the US Embassy is assigned to monitor human rights - a claim the State Department disputes.

The Clinton administration opposes the bill because it seeks to manage the organisation of the foreign service.

Several Republicans on the Committee on International Relations opposed the measure, which claimed that political repression on the mainland had increased last year, and that human rights abuses - including torture - were widespread.

The committee also voted to increase funding for Radio Free Asia from US$30 million to US$40 million annually.

The legislation said Radio Free Asia and Voice of America should develop a 24-hour service in Mandarin, Cantonese and Tibetan and further broadcasting capability in the dialects spoken in Xinjiang and other regions.

The bill said China had demonstrated that maintaining its monopoly on political power was a much higher priority than economic development.

It did so by announcing last year that Xinhua would supervise wire services selling economic information including Dow Jones-Telerate, Reuter and Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, a measure that would have barred certain Chinese officials from visiting the United States narrowly failed in a vote by the committee.

The law would have banned from the US Chinese government officials involved in implementing policies persecuting religious minorities.