AFP: Chretien to raise human rights issues while in China: aides

Wednesday, February 7, 2001 OTTAWA, Feb 6 (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will discuss human rights problems when he meets with Chinese officials in Beijing next week during a Team Canada trade mission, senior Canadian officials said Tuesday. The officials, briefing reporters on background, said the Team Canada mission -- to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong -- will be the largest such trade mission in Canadian history, with more than 600 participants already confirmed. It will also mark the first time that Chretien -- who led the first-ever Team Canada trade mission in 1994, to China -- will have taken his much publicized Team Canada to the same county for a second time, said the officials. During the 1994 mission, 65 new business deals worth 8.9 billion dollars (about 6 billion US) were announced. Since then, the Canadian business presence in China has more than doubled to more than 400 Canadian firms with offices or operations there. But Chretien has been widely criticized, both by opposition political parties in Canada and by members of his own governing Liberal Party, for putting trade before human rights. The officials briefing reporters insisted Tuesday that Chretien would raise human rights issues -- including the clampdown on the controversial Falun Gong movement -- with the Chinese leadership. Chretien is scheduled to meet with, among others, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng. In Hong Kong, Chretien will meet with Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa. [...]