We will make ‘greater progress’ on human rights: China

The dialogue on human rights was earlier suspended in 2002 following the US criticism of China’s record at the UN.

The two countries had started the human rights dialogue after the pro-democracy protest was crushed at Tinanmen Square in Beijing in 1989.

The US envoy and head of the team, David Krammer, described their talks that included the situation in Tibet and freedom of media and religion as ‘constructive and productive’ and said ‘we are encouraged by the resumption of dialogue and look forward to its continuation’.

“We expanded on our principled position that there should be equality and mutual respect in conducting dialogue and our disputes should be settled in a constructive manner,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing.

He said the Chinese side also made it clear that ‘there should be no double standards or any interference in other’s internal affairs by making use of human rights issue’.

According to Qin, Krammer described China’s progress in human rights as ‘encouraging’ and said the US was ready to work with Beijing to ‘prove that the countries are capable to settle their disputes in a constructive way’.

Krammer, who had the dialogue with Wu Hailong, Director of the International Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, also met Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Qin said.

Answering a query on criticism of China’s human rights record, Qin said such accusations could not be accepted as Beijing had made a ‘great progress’ since the reforms and opening up which was ‘widely recognised’ by the world.

He said the fact that the government was sparing no efforts to provide relief to the victims of the devastating earthquake in southwest China itself was a reflection of Beijing’s concern for human rights.

In Tibet, he said the government had dealt with ‘criminals’ according to the law following the riots in Lhasa during anti-government protests and ‘it was done exactly to safeguard the human rights of various ethnic groups’.

“I hope the international community will respect facts and drop their bias. I don’t know which international community you are referring to. Some countries are just being biased and they cannot represent the international community.”