Monster Media 1994 #2/Monster Media No. 2 (Monster Media)(1994).ISO/magazine/wtn_0594.zip/WTN-0522.NWS

Text File | 1994-06-06 | 16KB | 261 lines

------------------------   World Tibet Network News   ----------------------
   Published by:     The Canada-Tibet Committee
   Editorial Board:  Brian Given <[e-mail]>
                     Nima Dorjee <[e-mail]>
                     Conrad Richter <[e-mail]>
                     Tseten Samdup <[e-mail]>
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   Send us your comments, announcements, news or items for discussion.
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Issue ID: 94/05/22 13:00 GMT                      Compiled by Conrad Richter

Contents
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1. Torture and Trade Hold Weight in Clinton's Decision on China
2. Trade Deadline Intensifies Scrutiny of Human Rights in China
3. New York Times to Clinton: Slap Targeted Sanctions on China
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1. Torture and Trade Hold Weight in Clinton's Decision on China
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Forwarded by: Dan Hodel, Tibetan Rights Campaign <[e-mail]>
By Evelyn Iritani
   SEATTLE, May 21, Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- Tsultrim Dolma,
a 24-year -old former nun who spent four months in a Tibetan
detention center, visited Seattle yesterday with a painful story
of being beaten while handcuffed, tortured with electric prods,
and raped by three Chinese military officers.
   Here only crime, according to the soft-spoken woman, was
publicly criticizing the Chinese government's occupation of Tibet
during a protest in 1988.
   Dolma is traveling the country as part of a nationwide campaign
by Tibetan supporters, human rights groups and others to persuade
President Clinton to stand firm against China's human rights
abuses. Clinton must decide by June 3 whether to extend
most-favored-nation status -- which is granted to most U.S.
trading partners -- to China.
   But Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of a bipartisan task
force on U.S.-China policy, argues with equal passion that the
best -- and perhaps only
-- way to improve China's human rights record is through increased
trade that encourages contacts with the outside world.
   The opposing views highlight the challenges facing the United
States as it tries to fashion a China policy that promotes the
sale of such products as Boeing airplanes and Microsoft software
without undermining the traditional U.S. role as a champion of
democracy and civil liberties.
   Clinton is expected to make his decision next week before
leaving for Europe to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
   Last year Clinton, under pressure from China's critics in
Congress, agreed to renew the most-favored-nation trade status if
China made "significant progress: on issues such as the accounting
of political prisoners, easing repression in Tibet and ending the
jamming of Voice of America radio broadcasts.
   In recent weeks, the Chinese government has made some
concessions to the United States by releasing several prominent
dissidents from jail and agreeing to meet with technicians to
discuss Voice of America radio broadcasts.
   But while the U.S. business community has lobbied hard to
persuade the Clinton administration not to imperil a trade
relationship worth $43 billion a year in imports and exports,
China's critics are equally vehement that China has not met
Clinton's conditions and say the president must follow through
with a punishment.
   The AFL-CIO and the U.S. Catholic Conference have joined the
movement to revoke China's trade status, citing reports that the
Chinese government continues to export prison-made goods, repress
religious freedom and has stepped up its oppression of worker
activists.
   Karen Keiser, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Labor
Council, said the council supports the AFL-CIO's position based on
China's "gross violations of human rights and worker rights."
   Kunzang Yuthok, a Tibetan American who heads up the Tibetan
Rights Campaign in Seattle, disputes the argument that China will
retaliate by taking its business elsewhere if the United States
revokes the trade status. In the past, China's leaders have
singled out Boeing airplanes as one possible victim of a
U.S.-China trade war.
   She said China can't afford to give up its economic ties to the
United States, which accounts for huge share of its textile
exports and is a future supplier of badly needed high-technology
products and technical assistance..[K
   She also decried the notion that the United States would help
more people in China by promoting trade with the expectation that
a higher standard of living will eventually lead to greater
political and economic freedom.
   "Things like torture, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment
without trial should not be happening now," she said. "Are people
saying that the poor shouldn't have rights, let's wait until
everyone is middle class?"
   But McDermott, who helped set up Seattle's sister-city
relationship with Chongquing, said the United States must look for
other ways of influencing countries like China. He is a proponent
of renewing China's trade status without any conditions and
establishing a bilateral human rights commission.
   By separating economic and human rights issues, the United
States could avoid jeopardizing a relationship that has grown in
importance with the end of the Cold War and China's increased
economic and political stature, McDermott said.
   "We tend to think here that water only runs one way," he said.
"But when you're dealing in an international relationship with the
largest country in the world, it runs both ways."

PHOTO CAPTION: Francisca van Holthoon, right, a Dutch human rights
activist, and Tsultrim Dolma, a Tibetan nun, examine an implement
of torture often used on political prisoners in China.

[Note: Don't be misled into thinking that the Seattle print media
is treating this issue in anything resembling an even-handed manner.
Last week, when the Boeing-Weyerhaeuser-bank-trade coalition
announced they would hold a news conference to state their position
the next day, it merited a front page banner headline before the
event, plus coverage on the day after the event.  Although notified
even earlier about the anti-MFN news conference, there was not a
single word in the newspaper until after the fact. -DH]

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2. Trade Deadline Intensifies Scrutiny of Human Rights in China
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By Daniel Williams
    WASHINGTON, May 22, Washington Post -- President Clinton's year-long human
rights policy toward China has produced one incontrovertible byproduct:
scrutiny in the United States of Beijing's human rights practices as never
before.
    Ironically, it is this focus that makes it all but impossible for Clinton
to certify human rights progress in China and therefore unconditionally extend
its most-favored nation trade privileges with the United States. Clinton must
make a ruling by June 3.
    Secretary of State Warren Christopher is wrestling with options that would
in some way keep pressure on China, but not risk devastating relations by
revoking the country's low tariff status. The favored option is to ban imports
of goods made by the People's Liberation Army, administration officials say.
    Fueling the ongoing debate, China yesterday denied reports by U.S.-based
human rights groups that it was torturing and mistreating hundreds of
previously unknown prisoners from the Tiananmen Square protests five years
ago, Reuter reported from Beijing.
    The urge to keep some pressure on is bolstered by a budding political
consensus here. Even members of Congress who in recent days called on Clinton
to break the link between trade and human rights have also suggested that some
way be found to address Chinese human rights abuses.
    "We're finding that a broad cross section of opinion wants to press human
rights hard. The Chinese might get through the MFN issue, but not the human
rights issue," an administration official said in an interview.
    One pitfall Christopher is trying to avoid is a credibility gap: The
Chinese have never believed that Clinton would revoke MFN outright. They noted
early statements by American business leaders and administration officials
expressing the view that such a move would cost the United States valuable
entry into China's burgeoning market as well as American jobs.
    The ban on army imports, which include assault weapons, is regarded by
some as limited enough not to overly disrupt trade important to both
countries, but harsh enough to put the Chinese on notice that human rights
will not be a forgotten issue, an administration official said.
    Still, other voices in the administration are wary. The Pentagon fears
losing contacts in the Chinese military and some economic officials oppose any
trade disruption over human rights.
    Future talks on human rights will likely be kept as private as possible,
the administration official added. China responded with unspecified
concessions to the recent mission of envoy Michael Armacost, who was recruited
by Christopher to appeal for gestures, the official said.
    The intense debate here over human rights in China is without precedent in
the 15 years of full diplomatic relations between the two countries. For the
first decade of relations, human rights scrutiny was largely out of the public
eye, the preserve of Chinese exiles, Tibetan nationalists and human rights
groups. China's trade rights, conditioned on immigration and prison labor
policy under the so-called Jackson-Vanik amendment, were extended routinely.
    Concern about the plight of political prisoners never reached the same
level as concern for Soviet refuseniks or the inhabitants of the Soviet
Union's gulag of prison camps.
    That began to change with the 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square. The image of tanks routing unarmed civilian protesters
exposed the dearth of political reform beneath the glitter of China's rapid
economic progress. Democrats in Congress clamored for President George Bush to
restrict trade. Bush vetoed such legislation and Clinton made it a campaign
issue by accusing the Republican president of coddling dictators.
    If Clinton decides to renew MFN status, he will be vulnerable to the
charge of reneging on a campaign commitment. But senior officials insist there
will be a strong human rights component to whatever policy comes out.
   Due to the approaching June deadline for Clinton's decision, continuing
arrests of democracy activists, religious figures and other dissidents,
largely unknown by name in the United States, are reported extensively by
newspapers and on television. Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy activist released
last year after 15 years in prison, is fast becoming China's Anatoly
Scharansky, the once-imprisoned Jewish dissident whose fate was a kind of
barometer for human rights in the former Soviet Union.
    The existence of China's own network of prison labor camps is becoming as
widely known as the defunct Soviet gulag. Last week Harry Wu, an exiled
second-generation alumnus of the Chinese gulag, charged that American
companies were importing goods produced by prison labor. Such goods are made
as part of laogai, the Chinese "reform through labor" system left over from
Maoist days.
    Wu, in an interview, said that focusing on individual cases of repression
is inadequate because China runs such a broad system of abuse. "They will
always have prisoners to release as gestures," he said. "There are thousands
of them."
    He said that the threat to revoke MFN status ought to be maintained as a
"weapon."
    The decision to extend MFN is technically based on scoring in seven
categories, somewhat in the manner of figure skating competition. Meeting
conditions in two of the categories is compulsory. China must show progress in
immigration and prison labor matters. The first condition was met when Beijing
granted permission for dissidents to leave the country, the second through an
agreement to implement a two-year-old accord on inspection of prisons
suspected of producing goods for export to the United States.
    The non-compulsory categories include a commitment to global human rights
standards, essentially based on China's word. A category on the release and
accounting for political prisoners has been partially met by a few releases
and the listing by China of some inmates. No effort has been recorded to ease
repression in Tibet. China has entered talks with the International Committee
of the Red Cross on prison inspections but has allowed none. China has yet to
unjam the Voice of America as requested, but has talked with American
technicians about reception problems.
    The gestures could permit Christopher to "lawyer" a conclusion that China
has made "overall, significant improvement" as required by Clinton. But one
administration official said he is wary of sacrificing credibility in order to
sweep the issue aside.

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3. New York Times to Clinton: Slap Targeted Sanctions on China
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    NEW YORK, May 21, Reuter -- President Clinton should propose targeted
economic sanctions against Beijing as a way to send a political message to
China for failing to meet U.S. human rights standars, The New York Times
said in a Sunday editorial.
     But the influential newspaper urged Clinton to stop short of revoking
China's special trading privileges, a decision he must make by June 3.
     Last year, the Clinton administration said China must improve its human
rights before Washington renews its Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status,
which allow Chinese exports to enter the United States at the lowest possible
tariffs.
     It said China should make "overall, significant progress" on seven
human-rights issues, including freeing political prisoners, ending repression
in Tibet and easing emigration.
     On Sunday, the New York Times said China has failed to meet some of the
stated conditions and has intensified repression in Beijing, Shanghai and
Tibet.
     "Mr Clinton now needs to retaliate by proposing (to Congress) selective
sanctions that send the strongest political message at the lowest economic
cost," it said.
     Instead of completely revoking trade privileges, Clinton should press for
higher duties on specific goods, such as those produced by army-run companies,
it said.
     American credibility on human rights and nuclear proliferation would be
lost if Clinton backs down to "Beijing's bullying," the paper warned.
     The White House said Wednesday limited sanctions against China were among
options being considered to pressure China to improve its human rights.
     Chinese Premier Li Peng warned the United States Monday not to meddle in
Beijing's domestic affairs and said he hoped Clinton will accordingly act in a
statesmanlike manner.
     China has warned Washington that U.S. business will suffer should MFN be
revoked.
     U.S. business groups are pressing for continued MFN privileges, U.S.
Senator Mark Hatfield, an Oregon Republican, said that yanking China's trade
privileges could cost U.S. consumers more than $10 billion.

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 * Origin: BODY DHARMA * Moderator, TIBET_NEWS - DharmaNet (96:101/33)