Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-12-Speech-3-231"
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"en.20071212.27.3-231"2
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".
Madam President, we are talking today to Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, and that is welcome. However, at the 10th EU-China summit in Beijing on 28 November, the European Union was represented by its President, by the Trade Commissioner and by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner.
It is true that, since 2000, trade between the European Union and China has increased by 150%; it is also true that it has become much harder to produce statistics on the deteriorating human rights situation in China. There is nothing taboo about discussing human rights issues at the same time as trade issues. There is an obvious link between them, for example in relation to the freedom to join a trade union, and the ability of workers in China to mobilise and demand better working conditions. The general attitude we encounter is deplorable, all the more so because its effect is to make us waste time: the decision taken in 2001 promised a new openness in China and progress on human rights and democracy; the Chinese people are waiting for that promise to be kept and they are looking to us.
They have been disappointed in their hope that openness would result from China’s staging the Olympic Games, and the sense of disappointment is bitter. Not only has the run-up to the Games so far brought harsher repression but – even more regrettably – the organisation of the Games has itself had unforeseen effects and has been used as a pretext for serious human rights violations. I am thinking here of the cases of forced expropriation and of the exploitation of migrant labour. All this may not be surprising, for the dissident Hu Jia informs us that the head of security in Beijing is also the person in charge of organising the Olympic Games there.
Perhaps we shall get round to expressing surprise or even dismay about that state of affairs when the intimidation and repression of foreign journalists – which has already begun – becomes even more drastic, for they are already being prevented from working. The arrest of two Agence France-Presse journalists on 12 September, for example, shows that the rules introduced in January 2007 are being applied only patchily and only insofar as the persons concerned cause no embarrassment to the regime. The undertakings given by China are a dead letter; indeed, it is falling so far short of its commitments that it has resorted to compiling blacklists. There is currently a blacklist of 42 categories of people regarded as
during the Olympic Games, ranging from the Dalaï Lama to followers of Falun Gong and including dissidents.
In January this year, negotiations began on a new EU-China framework agreement. That is welcome because a new agreement also means a new ‘human rights and democracy’ clause. It creates fresh scope for discussing human rights concerns with the Chinese authorities. However, 2007 was also the year that saw the cancellation of a legal seminar to prepare for the human rights dialogue because the Chinese authorities refused to allow two particular NGOs to participate – one of them the well-known organisation represented by human rights campaigner Sharon Hom. It was certainly salutary to find the Union taking a firm stand on that occasion. At the same time, of course, we have to ask whether seminars like this can continue. Our position is that the two things must not be mutually exclusive. It is very important to go on holding legal seminars. Equally, however, we cannot permit the Chinese authorities to dictate who may take part in them."@en1
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