World Tibet Network News Monday, March 16, 1998

WASHINGTON, March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- On Friday afternoon, the Clinton administration announced it would not support a resolution criticizing China's human rights record at a United Nations human rights conference beginning today in Geneva. ``This is yet another scandal,'' Family Research Council President Gary Bauer said Monday. ``America has long been a voice for the oppressed. The administration's decision is giving China carte blanche on human rights abuses. Once again, it shows that our foreign policy with China is not changing China, it's changing us.''

While China's foreign minister, Qian Qichen, announced last Thursday that his country will sign a United Nations human rights covenant, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 95-5, to urge President Clinton to press China about ``serious human rights abuses.'' The Clinton State Department immediately hailed Qian's statement and asserted it would have a ``significant impact'' on the administration's decision whether to squelch the Geneva resolution.

``What we have here, so far at least, is a paper promise,'' Bauer said. On the very same day that Qian's gesture made headlines came the story that, just weeks after it gave a pledge to halt aid to Iran's nuclear program, the Chinese government has been engaged in secret negotiations with Iran to provide hundreds of tons of uranium that can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. ``If China cannot be trusted for even a few weeks on a key bilateral agreement with the U.S., of how much worth is its signature on yet another United Nations declaration of good intentions?'' Bauer asked.

The State Department's most recent report portrays China's ``widespread and well-documented human rights abuses'' including torture, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and sterilization, crackdowns on independent Catholic and Protestant bishops and believers, brutal oppression of ethnic minorities and religions in Tibet and Xinjiang, and absolute intolerance of free political speech and free press. Citing recent reports in The New York Times of a growing trade in organs taken from executed Chinese prisoners, Bauer said, ``This is not a record of progress.''

``The Clinton administration's decision is one more example of the loss of moral leadership by the United States,'' Bauer said. ``Character counts -- for countries as well as for their leaders.''