Ottawa Citizen: Falun Gong to dog PM's China trip

Beijing's dismal rights record, jailed Canadian cast cloud on mission.

Canada 'has gone too far' to soft-pedal rights

By Randy Boswell, The Ottawa Citizen

Prime Minister Jean Chretien, set to embark on a Team Canada trade mission to Beijing in February, appears to be on a collision course with human rights groups over China's crackdown against the practitioners of Falun Gong.

The trip, meant to highlight and extend Canada's budding business partnership with China, comes amid new claims that close to 100 Chinese have been killed and tens of thousands are being persecuted for participating in Falun Gong's meditation exercises and spiritual gatherings. And Beijing's dismal human rights record -- always the dark cloud over Mr. Chretien's sunny promotion of trade with China -- will face particularly intense scrutiny during this trip because the imprisonment of a Canadian citizen has galvanized opposition in this country to the Chinese government's campaign against Falun Gong.

KunLun Zhang, 60, a sculpture professor and former Montrealer whose daughter LingDi attends the University of Ottawa, has been sentenced to three years in a Chinese labour camp for performing Falun Gong exercises in a public park.

"We want Canada to strongly urge the Chinese government to stop this brutal persecution," says Lucy Zhou, spokeswoman for Falun Gong in Ottawa and organizer of a Parliament Hill protest tomorrow aimed at pressuring the federal government to take a hard line on human rights during February's trade mission. A request by Canadian Embassy officials in Beijing to visit Mr. Zhang was denied last week by the Chinese government on the grounds that he had entered the country using his Chinese passport.

According to a spokesman with China's embassy in Ottawa, Mr. Zhang "has engaged in the illegal activities of the Falun Gong [] and jeopardized the public order. The Chinese authorities are entitled to bring him to justice. No other country has the right to interfere." Ms. Zhou says the Zhang case highlights a wide range of human rights abuses in China that should be raised during the Team Canada trip. "We're not here to say whether Canada should or should not do trade with China," says Ms. Zhou. But she insists that the Liberal government's largely "backroom" approach to improving China's human rights record has produced "no concrete changes."

Amnesty International in Ottawa and the Montreal-based Rights & Democracy -- a federally mandated agency headed by former Chretien cabinet colleague Warren Allmand -- echo the view that time has run out on Canada's policy of "bilateral dialogue" with China on human rights. While acknowledging that "nobody is saying No Trade with China," Carole Samdup of Rights & Democracy says "we are asking for a balance" between commercial deal-making and human rights advocacy." We believe that the carrot-and-stick policy does work, but this government has gone too far the one way."

Since 1997, Canada, Britain and a host of other Western nations have opted for direct, country-to-country dealings with China rather than leveraging the collective power of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to push the Chinese government into implementing reforms.

Canada has spoken out occasionally against China's treatment of its citizens, and Foreign Affairs officials have charged specifically that Mr. Zhang's "human rights have been infringed upon by Chinese authorities." Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron said Canadian policy toward China is broadly guided by the fact that "we believe that engagement rather than isolation is more likely to bring about improvement." He said it isn't clear yet whether Canada will directly raise the Falun Gong issue or other human rights concerns with China in February, but he added: "If we follow the trend (of previous trade missions) we have no reason to believe it will not be raised." He says ongoing bilateral talks with China have dealt with women and children's rights, the rights of the accused, the independence of the judiciary, as well as civil, political and minority rights.

But Ms. Samdup says Canada's diplomatic efforts toward improving human rights in China "is non-transparent, behind-the-scenes and non-reportable with no benchmarks." Above all, she argues, the policy "has not produced any results."

"We're all for dialogue," adds Amnesty International spokeswoman Patricia Balfour. "But what's been lacking in the human rights dialogue is multilateral pressure at the same time. There is a concern that China's game is to divide and conquer and it seems to have managed to silence each of the governments individually."

Last month, the foreign affairs committee of the British Parliament released a report concluding that the bilateral approach "has so far delivered no meaningful results" and that the human rights situation in China has, in fact, worsened in the past three years.

China's critics claim that pressure is building around the world for countries to adopt a resolution at the annual UN meeting in Geneva in March to condemn China for ongoing human rights violations. Ms. Samdup says the least the Canadian government should do prior to its trade mission is meet with human rights groups and make it clear to Beijing that abuses such as the Falun Gong persecution will be on the agenda in February.

An announcement about the Feb.9-18 Team Canada trip -- postponed from November because of the federal election -- was issued by Mr. Chretien just days after his government's victory on Nov. 27. In a message that made no mention of Canada's human rights objectives in China, Mr. Chretien noted that "the Chinese economy is currently a key element in our trade interests abroad" and touted the trip as "the best way to help Canadian companies make their mark in the global economy."

Ms. Balfour says Canada "can't continue going about its business as though these human rights violations are not taking place." Earlier this year, a letter objecting to Canada's human rights policy toward China was sent to Mr. Chretien and signed by 23 cultural and human rights organizations. "The Chinese have learned that they can violate human rights with impunity as long as they open their markets to export-dependent countries such as Canada," said Thubten Samdup, president of the Canada Tibet Committee, at that time. "I believe that the people of Canada want another international image for this country."

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