World Tibet Network News Saturday, March 07, 1998

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) -- The Clinton administration faced criticism on Wednesday in the U.S. Congress for a delay in deciding whether to push a United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution criticizing China's human-rights policy.

"I would suggest to you that the United States be a leader and not a follower of the (European Union)," Representative Nancy Pelosi told Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (pictured) at a congressional hearing.

The California Democrat was responding to Albright's comment that the European Union (EU), which last week agreed not to sponsor the annual resolution at the commission meeting, had decided a resolution is "not the best approach" with China.

"We know that we have a very difficult row to hoe here," said Albright who reiterated that the administration was still "consulting" with its allies about what to do.

The commission begins meeting on March 15 in Geneva.

Pelosi complained that the administration was delaying making a decision too long if it wanted to make a serious effort at getting a resolution passed.

"...This should be something that we have been working on for a longer period of time than...11 days before" the commission convenes, the congresswoman said.

Albright promised an answer on the resolution "very soon." Human rights advocates said they had expected the United States would decide what to do about the resolution soon after the EU made its decision.

But they and U.S. officials said the administration was divided on what action to take.

National Security Adviser Sandy Berger is understood to be opposed to a resolution on the grounds that the exercise was no longer productive while Albright was inclined to go forward with it, the sources said.

"The more they delay, the more they give China an advantage" to rally support for its position opposed to a resolution, Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch said.

"China has been lining up votes for months while the administration was sitting on its hands...Clearly the United States dragged out (its decision-making) process waiting for the EU to move," he said.

Although the United States and its allies have never succeeded in winning passage by the commission of a resolution criticizing China's human rights policy, the process keeps pressure on Beijing to take even the limited steps it has taken to improve the rights situation, Jendrzejczyk said.

It also helps maintain U.S. credibility as an advocate of human rights, he added.

Congress is considering a non-binding resolution that would encourage the administration to again back the resolution and campaign for its passage.

The EU traditionally sponsored critical resolutions each year since China crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 but China always mustered enough support to block the moves.

Both the EU and the United States are trying to improve ties with Beijing. The EU and China will hold their first summit in London next month. The United States and China are due to hold later this year a follow-up summit to one that took place in Washington last October.