DATE=3/21/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA - HUMAN RIGHTS  (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260411
BYLINE=STEPHANIE MANN
DATELINE=BEIJING
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:

INTRO:  China has called on the United States to 
abandon its plan to criticize Chinese human rights 
practices at a United Nations meeting in Geneva.  But 
the Chinese foreign minister told a visiting U-S 
diplomat, Beijing is ready to fight if Washington goes 
forward with such a plan. VOA Correspondent Stephanie 
Mann reports from Beijing.  

TEXT:  Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told U-S 
Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke 
China will fight to the finish if the U-S side is bent 
on confrontation. 

The two officials met in Beijing and discussed several 
issues, including the current session of the U-N Human 
Rights Commission in Geneva.  

The Xinhua news agency reports Foreign Minister Tang 
said the United States should correct what he called 
its erroneous decision to try to get the commission to 
consider an anti-China resolution.  Mr. Tang said the 
two sides should deal with their differences over 
human rights through dialogue, with a long-term 
perspective, and pull back from the brink of a 
precipice.

Nearly every year for the past decade, the United 
States has sponsored a resolution critical of China's 
human rights practices.  However, each time, the 
measure was either blocked from coming to a vote or 
was defeated. 

In Washington Monday, a senior U-S official said the 
situation may be different this year and China may not 
be able to get enough support to keep its human rights 
record off the agenda at the Geneva meeting.  The 
official said some of the 53-member countries of the 
Human Rights Commission are troubled by China's 
deteriorating human rights situation and may change 
their votes this year. 

At the regular Foreign Ministry briefing in Beijing 
Tuesday, spokesman Sun Yuxi dismissed those remarks 
and said any effort to condemn China's human rights 
practices at the U-N body is doomed to fail.  

Outside the U-N building in Geneva Monday, a few 
hundred members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement 
staged a silent demonstration.  China has banned the 
group as a dangerous cult.  Mr. Sun did not comment 
directly on the demonstration but, speaking through a 
translator, he defended China's crackdown on the 
movement.

            // SUN ACT / TRANSLATOR //

Falun Gong is a cult that damaged people's health and 
mentality and also damaged the society.  China's 
handling of the Falun Gong in accordance with law is 
specifically (for) the protection of fundamental human 
rights and freedom of the Chinese people. 

            // END ACT //

A U-S based spokeswoman for the Falun Gong says China 
has sent about five-thousand Falun Gong adherents to 
labor camps without trial and given others prison 
terms.  The group, which combines meditation and 
exercise, says it has more than 70 million adherents 
around the world and accuses the Chinese government of 
arresting 35-thousand members since the Communist 
Party banned it last July.  (Signed) 

NEB/SMN/FC 



21-Mar-2000 06:34 AM EDT (21-Mar-2000 1134 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.