China admits human-rights flaws

German News Agency

BEIJING--China's highest governing body on Wednesday admitted it still had a long way to go before the rights of its 1.2 billion citizens could be guaranteed, the official media reported.

"Though great achievements have been made in the last four years in promoting the development of human rights in China, some human-rights situations are not so satisfactory because of the limitation of history and the level of development," the Xinhua News Agency said.

In its white paper outlining the progress of human rights on the mainland over the past four years, the state council made clear the Chinese government's definition of human rights on the mainland.

"Today, political stability, economic development and social progress are characteristics of China's new social order, along with ethnic unity, domestic harmony and a continually rising standard of living, thereby demonstrating the over-all improvement in human rights."

Since the release of the last white paper on the subject in 1991, the state council said the government had succeeded in safeguarding the principles laid out in the United Nations Charter on Human Rights.

However, at the same time China "firmly opposed some countries' hegemonic acts of using a double standard for the human rights of other countries, especially developing countries, and imposing their own pattern on others, or interfering in the internal affairs of other countries by using 'human rights' as a pretext," Xinhua said.

China's human-rights record has long been a sore point with the international community.

Earlier this month China re-tried and sentenced its number one dissident, Wei Jingsheng, to 14 years in prison. Wei previously spent nearly 15 years in the Chinese gulag for his role in the 1978-79 Democracy Wall movement.

The Beijing Higher People's Court upheld Wei's 14-year sentence at an appeal hearing today, a court official said.

Sino-U.S. relations have continued to suffer because of U.S. criticism of China's human- rights record, but it is uncertain whether the U.S. government will again link human rights with trade policy.

Western diplomats predict China will finally gain entry to the World Trade Organization in 1996 despite world-wide criticism of its human-rights record.

(text of December 28, 1995 Vancouver Sun article)

-YOU WILL NOTICE THE ANNOTATED SECTION OF THIS ARTICLE.
AND YOU WILL NOTICE THERE IS ONE OF MY LITTLE ICONS ON THE LINKED PAGE HERE. I WILL HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THESE TWO PAGES AFTER I HAVE GONE BACK TO CHECK WHICH INTERNATIONAL LEGAL HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS EXACTLY WERE IGNORED/DISRESPECTED IN THE 1982 JUSTICE J. JEROME-JUSTICE MINISTRY UNDER JEAN CHRÉTIEN-REPRESENTED "APPEAL TO THE UMPIRE" PROCESS RE MY "INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC WORK...ON A DIRECT BASIS" FOR THE WORLD'S CHILDREN, AND AFTER I HAVE ON THIS WEBSITE THE FULL TEXT OF POSSIBLY THE ONLY HONEST SUMMARY OF THAT WORK (THE DECEMBER, 1987 STATEMENT TO SOUTH AFRICA'S P.W. BOTHA), AND ALSO THE FULL TEXTS OF THE THREE STATEMENTS TO THE "IRANGATE" INDEPENDENT COUNSEL.

(FOR THE FIRST, TAKE A SERIES OF BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.
FOR THE SECOND, TAKE A SERIES OF BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.
FOR THE THIRD, TAKE A SERIES OF BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.)

TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.