Human rights activists to protest Chinese visit

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Human rights activists led by the Graduate Students Union of Trinity College Dublin are to mount a protest as the Chinese vice-premier, Mr Li Lanqing, be gins a trade visit to Ireland today. They will be protesting over the arrest and detainment in Beijing of Mr Zhao Ming, a TCD postgraduate in computer studies.

Mr Zhao was held with two other Irish-based Chinese students, Mr Yang Pang and Mr Liu Feng, when they returned to Beijing last Christmas for a holiday. Mr Yang is studying accountancy at Senior College, Sallynoggin, and Mr Liu is a marketing student at D? Laoghaire Community College. Also arrested was Ms Dai Dongxue, an employee with Microsoft Ireland in Dublin, who was later released.

The four were arrested for protesting against the abusive treatment of their Falun Gong colleagues by the Chinese authorities. Falun Gong draws on traditional Buddhist meditation exercises and beliefs and has a growing following in the West.

Official Chinese statistics put its membership at 70-100 million. Last year's crackdown was seen to be significant because its followers came from all levels of society, including Communist Party members, military personnel and government officials.

The recent execution on corruption charges of Hu Changqing, vice-governor of Jianxi province, a key centre of economic growth and reform, is thought to be related to the anti-Falun Gong campaign. He was a senior religious affairs official, the most senior party official to be executed in China since 1949. Mr Li's visit to Ireland is strategically significant, according to Mr Anthony O'Brien of the Tibet Support Group Ireland.

"It comes just when China's human rights record is under scrutiny before the UN Human Rights Commission at Geneva," he said. "This is their standard ploy with any country they feel may oppose them and Ireland has been quite good on speaking out, though never ultimately departing from the EU's failed policy of dialogue."

On April 6th, the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Human Rights Committee unanimously passed a resolution which recognised that bilateral dialogue had failed to produce "meaningful improvements in the human rights of the Chinese and Tibetan peoples". It also urged negotiations between Beijing and the Dalai Lama.

Beijing's role as a "strategic partner" to the West in general and the US in particular is seriously exaggerated, according to analyst Mr Gerald Segal, an analyst at the London Institute of Strategic Studies. He said that while in terms of economic growth it ranked seventh in the world, behind Italy and ahead of Brazil, its per capita earnings rating was among the lowest.