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U.S. Pushes China on Prisoners, Religious Freedoms
Mon December 16, 2002 03:51 AM ET
By Tamora Vidaillet
BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. rights envoy Lorne Craner on
Monday began two days of high-level talks with Chinese
officials in which he was expected to press Beijing to
free political prisoners and increase religious
freedoms.
In a resumption of a bilateral human rights dialogue,
last active in October 2001, Craner said he would
discuss human rights and democracy issues, but did not
elaborate on specific cases he would raise.
"We're hoping for a very productive session today and
results in the coming weeks and new year," Craner,
U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human
rights and labor affairs, told reporters.
China's criminal justice system and workers' rights
would also feature in talks with senior Foreign
Ministry official Li Baodong and Chief Justice Nan
Ying. China imprisoned labor leaders during mass
protests this year.
Predominantly Buddhist Tibet and the Muslim-populated
region of Xinjiang would also be discussed during the
talks, which were also to be attended by John Hanford,
U.S. ambassador at large for international religious
freedom, the U.S. embassy said.
U.S. concerns about human rights in China have
continued to stand out as a stumbling block in a
relationship that has improved, with closer
cooperation, since the U.S.-led war on terror began in
September last year.
China was quick to back the campaign, but called for
international support for its own fight against
separatists from Xinjiang's Uighur ethnic minority,
who foreign rights groups say suffer wrongful
persecution under Chinese rule.
Beijing has accused Uighur separatists of joining
forces with Osama bin Laden, chief suspect for the
September 11 attacks, and of terror-linked bombings
and killings on Chinese soil.
Human rights has always been a thorny issue between
the two nations, partly due to differing views on
individual versus collective rights. The Sino-U.S
rights dialogue stalled after the United States bombed
the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Washington
said the bombing was a mistake.
SLEW OF CASES
Craner was to visit Xinjiang on Wednesday and Thursday
in a move that could placate rights groups that are
worried that human rights issues may play second
fiddle to broader bilateral political objectives.
Fears that Washington might overlook human rights
issues in exchange for strengthened political support
arose in September, when the United States put a group
named the East Turkestan Islamic Movement on its list
of terrorist organizations.
Some western diplomats described the move as a quid
pro quo to win China's support for U.S. plans in Iraq.
A spokesman for the Germany-based East Turkestan
Information Center said by telephone that political
pressures had touched all levels of Xinjiang society
since the September 11 attacks and that thousands of
Uighurs had been rounded up by Chinese police.
"The Chinese government thinks that all kinds of
people are linked to separatism," the spokesman said.
"Islam has been seen as a more dangerous religion
after September 11."
Uighurs abroad hoped Washington would go beyond talks
and exert concrete political pressure on China to
loosen religious controls and improve the human rights
situation, he said.
"(The United States) should help us establish a local
non-governmental human rights observation organization,"
he said.
"That way we can give feedback on the local situation
to international human rights organizations in time,
instead of listening to what the Chinese authorities
say."
The U.S. embassy declined to comment on specific cases
Craner was likely to bring up during the bilateral
talks.
But U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Clark Randt told
business people last month that he had consistently
raised a slew of unresolved rights cases involving
prisoners of conscience and people held in defiance of
China's own laws.
Randt mentioned Xu Wenli, jailed for 13 years in 1998
for organizing an opposition political party, and
Rebiya Kadeer, a leading Uighur businesswoman
imprisoned for eight years for mailing newspaper
clippings to her U.S.-based husband.
U.S. officials have also expressed concern about Yang
Jianli, a dissident detained in April after entering
China on a friend's passport and trying to leave on
fake identification papers.
Randt said he hoped further dialogue with China on
specific cases would lead to concrete results, as in
the case of Tibetan nun Ngawang Sangdrol, who was
freed ahead of an October summit between Chinese
President Jiang Zemin and U.S. counterpart George W.
Bush.
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