U.S. to Criticize China's Human Rights

Harry Dunphy

WASHINGTON - Reversing course from last year, the United States will introduce a resolution criticizing China's human rights record at a 53-nation U.N. conference under way in Geneva, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Richard Boucher repeated charges first made by the Bush administration last August that China has been backsliding on promises it made on arrests, religious freedom and other human rights issues.

He said the United States has been disappointed by what he characterized as China's failure to meet commitments it made at the U.S.-China human rights dialogue in December 2002 as well as a failure to follow through on its stated intention to expand cooperation on human rights in 2003.

As examples, Boucher cited the expected sentencing of a Chinese newspaper editor, the arrest last month of a priest and a lack of freedom of religious expression for Tibetan Buddhists.

"Our goal in sponsoring this resolution is to encourage China to take positive, concrete steps to meet its international obligations to protect fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people," Boucher said.

Last year at the U.N. Human Rights Conference in Geneva the United States decided not to seek a resolution criticizing China because the Americans said Beijing had made limited but significant progress on how it treats its people.

U.S. officials have introduced such a resolution almost every year since China cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989. None of the proposed resolutions has been approved.

This year's conference began March 15 and runs until April 23.

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Source: "AP".