Britain and China Clash Over Rights

Britain and China approved a set of key agreements on Hong Kong’s future Tuesday, but British Prime Minister John Major and Chinese Premier Li Peng clashed on human rights issues.

“My talks today with Chinese leaders have shown that, although we do not share common values, we do have shared interests--Hong Kong foremost among them,” Major said at an evening press conference.

Major and Li--who replied to the British leader’s human rights criticism with a rebuke that Britain had long ignored the issue during its imperialistic history with China--signed a previously announced memo on a massive $16-billion Hong Kong airport and port project.

Formal approval of the agreement means that “the construction of a new airport to serve the expanding needs of Hong Kong can now go ahead with all speed,” a joint communique said. The two sides also agreed on other issues concerning the colony’s 1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty.

Despite moves toward greater cooperation on Hong Kong, Major delivered stinging criticism of Chinese human rights abuses during his talks with Li and at his press conference. Earlier, at a separate press conference intended to put more pressure on the Chinese leadership, a U.S. human rights delegation headed by three members of Congress stressed similar points.

Major, who made a nine-hour stop in Moscow on his way to Beijing, said he told Li that more democratic politics will eventually come to China.

“I was able to brief the Chinese leaders on my visit to the Soviet Union and on developments there,” he said. “One lesson that I drew from that visit, in my discussions with Premier Li Peng, was that there is a global trend toward more open and more accountable government. That trend is inevitable and growing. It is against that background that I raised human rights.”

Major said that he made specific reference to:

* Tibet, where a series of anti-Chinese demonstrations and riots over the last four years have been violently suppressed.

* Treatment of religious believers in Tibet and elsewhere.

* Detention of people in China for “exercising the freedom of expression, predominantly student demonstrators.”

* The cases of four Hong Kong residents imprisoned in Chinese jails, and other prominent political prisoners. “I asked Premier Li Peng to take a personal interest in all these cases,” Major said.

Li, in turn, rebuked Major for Britain’s 19th-Century imperialism in China. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wu Jianmin said at a press conference that Li responded to Major’s comments on human rights by talking about a letter from a Chinese historian.

“He reminded me in his letter not to forget the history of China being bullied and humiliated in the past. . . ,” Li told Major. “In this more than 100-year period, foreign powers totally disregarded the human rights of the Chinese people.”

Li also stressed that in a poor and populous country, providing people with enough to eat is the most important human right, Wu said.

Major--who also met with Chinese President Yang Shangkun and Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin--vowed that Britain and other nations will persist in pressing China, saying: “Our discussion today on human rights is not the end of the matter. The ambassador will follow the matter up. . . . I intend to follow the matter up. . . . We wish to see results. It is the unrelenting, unremitting continuance of pressure that often yields results on human rights. So we will continue to press.”

Major’s comments came as part of a concerted Western effort to maintain international pressure on China’s hard-line leadership concerning human rights issues even as various countries move to resume normal economic and political ties with Beijing.

The U.S. human rights delegation, headed by Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Ben Jones (D-Ga.) and John Miller (R-Wash.), stressed Tuesday that Congress will continue to press the Chinese leadership to ease repression and release political prisoners.

“We have a list of nearly 1,000 prisoners which we will be presenting to the Chinese government in the hope that they will get a better understanding of how important human rights are to the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said.

Members of the delegation said that efforts to use U.S. trade policy to pressure China on human rights issues have been reinvigorated by the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.

Despite the harsh words exchanged on human rights, London and Beijing announced progress Tuesday toward smoothing cooperation in Hong Kong during the run-up to 1997. Besides signing the airport memo, which ensures China the right to be consulted extensively on each stage of construction, the two sides agreed on other steps to lay the groundwork for post-1997 stability in Hong Kong:

* Hong Kong will soon open negotiations to conclude its own investment promotion and protection agreements with major trading partners.

* A court of final appeal, with members selected by an independent committee, should be established in Hong Kong “as soon as feasible.” Major described this as “a matter of immense importance to ensure the independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong.”

* The two sides reaffirmed their intent to observe “in letter and spirit” the 1984 Joint Declaration on return of the colony to Chinese sovereignty. The declaration provides for Hong Kong to maintain its capitalist system and civil liberties for at least 50 years after 1997. They agreed to intensify cooperation on issues that need joint attention before 1997.

Major stressed that the agreements do not mean that Britain is giving up its authority to run Hong Kong through June 30, 1997, the last day of British rule. Critics have said that by seeking China’s cooperation and approval on matters such as the new airport, London is prematurely yielding authority to Beijing and endangering Hong Kong’s post-1997 autonomy.

Major rebutted such criticism, saying, “There is no question of the Chinese government seeking any veto, condominium or joint administration” of the colony.