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Foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) should endorse a resolution on China at the upcoming session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Human Rights Watch said today. The ministers are gathering in Brussels for an EU General Affairs meeting on January 26-27. Both the EU and the U.S. government are engaged in high-level discussions on whether to push a China motion this year. At the Commission's 1997 session, China mounted a successful campaign to block consideration of a resolution, threatening trade retaliation against European and other governments.

"It is the pressure of the annual U.N. debate that has pushed Beijing to take some limited initiatives on human rights thus far," said Lotte Leicht, director of the Human Rights Watch Brussels office. "But given the scale of abuses, it would be a mistake to remove that pressure before China takes concrete steps to comply with international standards."

Ms. Leicht welcomed Beijing's invitation to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to visit China, but warned that her visit could be used to undermine the credibility of the U.N. system for monitoring human rights. "It would be dangerous to the integrity of the Commission to give the impression that resolutions on abusive countries can be traded away for cooperation with high level delegations or visits by U.N. officials. Whether or not a China resolution is considered by the Commission should depend solely on Beijing's human rights record, which has not significantly improved."

The invitation to Mrs. Robinson was announced during talks by British Foreign Minister Robin Cook in Beijing earlier this week, clearly aimed at influencing the EU's decision on whether to sponsor a resolution at the Commission which convenes on March 16. (Great Britain is currently in the EU presidency.) A similar invitation had been extended to her predecessor, Jose Ayala Lasso, in the run up to last year's Commission meeting.

China has made other recent moves to try to undercut any support for a debate in Geneva. It agreed to hold the third session in a series of human rights "dialogues" with the EU in Beijing early next month. Chinese President Jiang Zemin has given mixed signals on the government's willingness to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Last October. China signed another key human rights convention, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- a step welcomed by Human Rights Watch -- but no action has yet been taken to ratify it. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited China last October for the first time, conducting interviews with some thirty prisoners. Their report has not yet been released.

While in Beijing, Mr. Cook called for the release of several political prisoners; France's foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, who left for China on Wednesday (January 21), is also expected to press for prisoner releases and the signing of the ICCPR. France has vigorously opposed any action in Geneva.

"Inviting a working group or conducting a dialogue are useful first steps. But unless China follows through by releasing large numbers of prisoners and adopting the recommendations of the U.N. for specific changes in its laws and human rights practices, these steps will end up being largely public relations exercises," said Ms. Leicht. "A resolution in Geneva can take positive note of what China has offered or agreed to do, but should go further and urge implementation of reforms in China's state security laws, abolition of arbitrary administrative detention, release of prisoners detained for the nonviolent expression of their beliefs, and steps to protect the freedom of association of workers, as well as unofficial religious groups."

Human Rights Watch endorsed programs to promote the rule of law in China, such as training for judges and lawyers, which the EU partners and other governments support, but stressed that these are long-term initiatives that are unlikely to have any immediate impact on continuing human rights violations given the lack of a free and independent judiciary in China.

Shortly before the UN Commission votes on resolutions and concludes its meeting on April 24, London will host the second ASEM summit of Asian government leaders on April 3-4. Mr. Cook, on behalf of the EU, has invited China's premier to attend the summit, and European governments appear anxious to drop the annual confrontation with Beijing in Geneva in order to remove a potential obstacle to closer economic and political relations.

Both the EU and the U.S. were on the verge of trading away the enormous pressure of the annual Geneva debate for economic gains, Human Rights Watch observed. "If China escapes all scrutiny in the highest U.N. body charged with monitoring human rights compliance, while continuing wide scale and systemic human rights violations, it will make a mockery of the U.N. system," Ms. Leicht said.

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