II. THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED STATES

In 1995, the year the resolution lost by one vote, the U.S. and E.U., which together with Japan were the resolution's co-sponsors, began efforts to get other countries on board as early as December 1994, when then U.S. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake went to Zimbabwe, Gabon and Ethiopia. The Geneva resolution was one of the issues on his agenda. Geraldine Ferraro, then head of the U.S. delegation to the commission, made calls to Latin American capitals.

After that close call, Chinese diplomats and government officials seemed to intensify their efforts to underscore that good economic relations with the world's largest country would be fostered by decreasing pressure on human rights. Overt Chinese pressure, of course, was not always needed: European leaders were well aware that the competitive edge with the Americans could be widened if human rights criticism was left to the latter, especially when the U.S. was already preoccupied with a struggle with China over intellectual property rights and the annual debate over Most Favored Nation status.

The first attempts to derail a resolution on China at the 1996 U.N. Human Rights Commission session took place in Bangkok on March 1 and 2, 1996 when Chinese Premier Li Peng met with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Jacques Chirac at the E.U.-Asia summit. With a US$2.1 billion Airbus contract hanging in the balance and a visit to France by Li Peng set for April, France took the lead in trying to work out a deal whereby in exchange for a few concessions from China, the E.U. and the U.S. would agree to drop the resolution. The nature of the proposed concessions was never made public but was rumored to include an agreement by China to sign and ratify the two major international human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the release of some political prisoners; and an invitation to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights José Ayala Lasso, to visit China. Ratification without reservations would indeed have been a useful step, but when pressed to give a timetable for ratification, Beijing reportedly backed off, and the deal fell through. Italy -- then in the presidency of the E.U. -- was said to be leaning to the French deal, as was Germany, which with bilateral trade of $18 billion, was China's largest trading partner in Europe and one of Europe's top investors in China. The Europeans did not come on board until ten days after the commission session opened, and then only reluctantly.

The resolution was doomed by a failure of will on the American side as well. The United States was no more eager than its European counterparts to earn China's opprobrium by sponsoring a resolution, and, according to one source, a deliberate decision was made within the Clinton administration sometime in December 1995 to give the resolution less attention than the year before, with the result that lobbying was late, desultory and ultimately unsuccessful.

Despite appeals on human rights in China and Tibet signed by over 200 French legislators and scattered protests, Li Peng's visit to Paris from April 9-13, just before the commission vote, was hailed by Beijing as marking a "watershed" in its ties with France. Li Peng took the opportunity to finalize the Airbus sale in what appeared to be a deliberate slight to the U.S. government and the American company Boeing, hitherto the the largest supplier of aircraft to China. In one reporter's words, China preferred to deal with countries that "don't lecture China about human rights, don't threaten sanctions for the piracy of music, videos and software and don't send their warships patrolling the Taiwan Straits."5

Li Peng's trip to Europe was followed in July 1996 by a six-nation swing by President Jiang Zemin through Europe and Asia, aimed at closing business deals and enhancing Jiang Zemin's international standing. An important side-effect, if not a deliberate objective of these visits, was to erode the willingness of some European countries to confront Beijing in Geneva. The trip came on the heels of a Chinese threat to impose economic sanctions on Germany in retaliation for a conference on Tibet. The conference was sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, closely linked to Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel's Free Democratic Party, and was to be held in Germany in June in cooperation with the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile. The row started over the German government's proposal to provide a subsidy for the conference. Under pressure, government funding was withdrawn, but the conference went ahead with the support of German politicians from all parties. The Chinese government then forced the closure of the foundation's Beijing office. In retaliation, German politicians introduced a motion in the Bundestag criticizing China's human rights record. China then withdrew an invitation to German Foreign Minister Kinkel to visit Beijing.

When Beijing further warned that German business interests in China could suffer, Bonn quickly scrambled to restore good relations. In September the invitation was renewed, and Kinkel went the following month. He did raise the cases of political prisoners Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng, but the real story was that commercial relations with Germany were back on track, for in November in Beijing, President Jiang and German President Roman Herzog signed four agreements on financial and technological cooperation. The last quarter of 1996 saw multimillion dollar deals signed between China and Germany companies, including a joint venture by Mercedes Benz in Jiangsu province to produce buses; a joint venture by Kogel Trailer to produce specialized auto vehicles; a joint venture of Bayer AC and Shanghai Coating Company to produce iron oxide pigments; and a US$6 billion investment in a petrochemical plant by German chemical company BASF.

China also wooed other European countries. In June, Chen Jinhua, head of China's State Planning Commission, visited Italy. In Milan, he held meetings with leading Italian financial and business interests, discussing how China's ninth five-year plan would lead to the continued opening up of the economy to the outside world. Stressing the growth of bilateral trade, which stood at a record US$ 5.18 billion in 1995, he noted China's potential as a huge market with possibilities for increased Sino-Italian cooperation. In September, Li Peng went to the Hague, just as the Netherlands was poised to take over leadership of the E.U.; in October, Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini led a group of Italian businessmen to Beijing on a "good will" visit; and in November, Li Peng was back in Europe on a visit to Rome, where he and his Italian counterpart pledged to encourage Sino-Italian economic and trade ties.

Britain also worked to bolster its trade with China. When Trade and Industry Secretary Ian Lang met with Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Development Wu Yi in Beijing in September 1996, they agreed to set up working groups on the chemical industry, aeronautics, and energy. In October, Li Lanqing, a vice-premier and vice-chair of the State Council (the equivalent of China's cabinet), traveled to London to meet with Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, and in November, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on forming a Sino-U.K. Aerospace Equipment Working Group to promote commercial and technical cooperation in civil aviation.