World Tibet Network News Friday, January 30, 1998

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (UPI) _ The Clinton administration says China is an ``authoritarian state'' where, despite positive steps in human rights in 1997, the government continued to commit abuses.

In today's annual report to Congress, which has an impact on Washington's military and economic assistance to other nations, the administration said abuses in China included ``torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, and arbitrary arrest and lengthy incommunicado detention.''

Beijing took ``several positive actions'' in 1997 to address international concerns in the area of human rights, signing the United Nations' Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and allowing the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to visit China.

The report said that Chinese government authorities ``continued to commit serious human rights abuses in Tibet, including instances of torture, arbitrary arrest, detention without public trial, and long detention of Tibetan nationalists.''

The report said Hong Kong, a former British colony that reverted to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997 ``remains a free society with legally protected rights.''