US Dismisses Chinese Threat Over UN Rights Resolution

NEW DELHI, Mar 22, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The United States on Tuesday dismissed a warning from China not to proceed with a resolution condemning the communist country's human rights record at the UN Commission on Human Rights this week.

"Nobody expects the Chinese to be pleased about this," said a senior State Department official travelling with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as she accompanies President Bill Clinton on his historic visit here.

"But Secretary Albright is going to travel from India to Geneva to speak to the UN human rights commission and our priorities at the commission this year include a country-specific resolution on China," the official told AFP.

"The United States is sponsoring one and we're working to gain support from other countries," the official said, adding that no amount of Chinese protests or threats would alter that course.

Earlier Tuesday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan pointedly told visiting US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, that China would "fight to the finish" against the United States on the human rights issue.

"If the US side is bent on confrontation, China will oblige it and fight to the finish, and this practice of the US side to go against the tide of history cannot attain the support of the vast majority of member nations of the United Nations," Tang was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

Past anti-China resolutions have failed at the commission in the face of aggressive lobbying from Beijing.

Albright is to break off from Clinton's South Asia tour late Wednesday to travel to Geneva where she will present the resolution on China to the UN rights commission the following day.

She will then rejoin Clinton in India and accompany him on a brief visit to Pakistan and told US lawmakers last week that the reason for her rigorous itinerary was to show the importance Washington places on pushing Beijing to improve human rights conditions.

"The whole purpose of this is to encourage China to follow through on its own stated commitment to the international standards for human rights," the senior US official said. "That's what this is about."

Earlier this year in its annual human rights report, Washington noted "a marked deterioration" in the rights situation in China, referring in part to increased crackdowns on pro-democracy advocates and repressive measures against the Falungong spiritual movement.

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)