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Paul Martin Says Human Rights Top Priority in Talks With Chinese President

Posted on: Thursday, 8 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin says human rights will be the top priority when he meets the Chinese president Friday.

"It is a very important issue and there isn't a trade-off between human rights and economics," Martin said after a cabinet meeting Thursday. "We are going to be raising both issues and I can tell you that in my meetings with the president on this particular trip it will be at the very top of the list."

Earlier, a news conference criticizing human rights abuses in China turned into a forum for the other side when a Chinese government journalist rose to his employer's defence.

Coinciding with the state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Amnesty International, the Canadian Labour Congress and others urged Ottawa to crank up pressure on Beijing to end its record of arrest, torture and execution.

"Canada needs to take the human rights engagement with China to a concrete level and move beyond some of the very vague, general, easy platitudes we've heard in the past," said Amnesty's Alex Neve.

While Chinese protesters stood in the rain on the Parliament Hill lawn and elsewhere, advocates said Canada's bargaining position has strengthened with China's growing need for industrial products and its desire to look good going into the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

They said human rights abuses have worsened under the leadership of Hu, who plans to spend the next 10 days in Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Vancouver.

But Wen-Zheng Hi, a reporter with the government-owned People's Daily in Beijing, said rich western democracies cannot impose their human rights standards on a developing country like China.

In a preamble to a question, Hi said Chinese society is in "transition" and should be given the benefit of the doubt.

He likened the situation to that of two families - one rich with one child, one poor with 10 children.

"Do you think we should apply the same rules to manage the two families?" Hi asked. "According to the understanding of the Chinese (populace), it's not possible to use a rich man's standard to manage the poor man's house.

"The food, the living conditions, the discipline all must be very severe."

It's not appropriate for the rich man to stand aloof from the poor man's situation and criticize him for the way he runs his house, Hi said.

Westerners should look at what China has accomplished in the last 60 years, he said before a Parliamentary Press Gallery official cut him off.

"You should allow different societies to have different priorities," he said. "The priorities should be different for the Chinese, who have suffered from starvation, from famine, from war.

"Most important, you should allow them opportunities . . . to have the basics. I just ask you whether you have put all these things into your consideration while you (criticize) Chinese human rights?"

Neve said the concerns of human rights activists and others have nothing to do with "rich man's rules" or uniquely Western democratic principles.

They are fundamental, universally recognized human rights principles, Neve said.

"These are rules that apply to all nations all over the world," he added.

"All nations and all governments have played a critical role in the development of those principles, including at various times representatives of the Chinese government. Those are the rules that we are expecting should be applied to all people in China at all times."

Outside the news conference, Hi acknowledged China has its problems. But he urged the West to allow the country time to bring about the political and social reforms to which it has committed itself.

Source: Canadian Press

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