China-EU relations falter over human rights record

Date: 17/12/1998

By Gareth Harding

Relations between China and the EU will only improve if the Communist state fully respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, MEPs will insist in a resolution due to be adopted by the European Parliament next month.

Although China is making impressive economic progress, MEPs will argue that few concrete political initiatives are being taken.

Supporters of democracy continue to be held without trial, labour laws are routinely flouted and “drastic measures” are meted out to large numbers of political prisoners.

In addition, the resolution warns that the Chinese authorities' repressive attitude to the Tibetan people is leading to the “the progressive extinction of a culture and civilisation”.

The Parliament's draft report, drawn up by French Christian Democrat MEP Pierre-Bernard Reymond, rejects both hard-line and hands-off approaches to China as “equally reprehensible”.

The first, warns the assembly's rapporteur, can only lead to Beijing hardening its attitude towards the West; whilst seeing the country as no more than a huge market of one billion inhabitants “would demonstrate an enormous cynicism and naïvety”.

Instead, the draft report recommends a similar twin-track approach to China-EU relations as the European Commission's policy paper, published earlier this year. This involves pressing the country to open up to the outside world, whilst encouraging it to evolve into a democratic society which respects civil liberties.

However, the Parliament's resolution takes a less tolerant attitude towardsthe Communist state's abysmal human rights record.

Declaring itself to be “seriously worried” by the denial of basic civil rights in China, the resolution lays down a number of principles upon which any future trade agreement between the two blocs must be based.

Amongst these are the abolition of the death penalty, freedom of expression, respect for free trade unions and the establishment of a multi-party political system.

In addition, the draft resolution calls on Beijing to step up its efforts to combat international terrorism and drug-trafficking, and stop supporting totalitarian regimes such as that in North Korea.

It argues that only by taking such measures can relations between the two blocs get better. And only if foreign investment and intellectual property rights are protected can China expect to join the World Trade Organisation and other international bodies.

One practical example of the EU's efforts to promote civil liberties in China was unveiled in the People's Republic last week.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Commission has joined forces with a Hong Kong-based human rights group to launch a Chinese language rights database on the Internet.