British Foreign Secretary David Miliband backed China in its skirmish with groups seeking to link the Beijing Olympics to progress on human rights, saying yesterday that "engagement, not isolation" is the correct approach.
Miliband, who is on an official visit to China, said "no opportunity has been wasted" to raise rights concerns with Chinese officials, but he mentioned no specific cases and said such discussions should not be explicitly tied to the Games.
"We believe that the Olympics are an opportunity to celebrate the progress that has been achieved in China," Miliband said after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (
"From our point of view, engagement, not isolation, is the right way forward," he said.
Appearing alongside Miliband, Yang sarcastically dismissed questions about links between rights issues and the Olympics, denying that a laid-off factory worker who went on trial last week on subversion charges had been arrested for protesting against the Olympic Games.
The worker, Yang Chunlin (楊春林), had sought to rally support for landless farmers by posting a letter on the Internet with the title: "We want human rights, not the Olympics."
"People in China enjoy extensive freedom of speech," Yang said. "No one will get arrested because he has said human rights were more important than the Olympic Games."
Yang said Chinese citizens were welcome to lecture police officers on the need to protect human rights.
"If they've been talking for too long and get tired, the officer will offer him a cup of tea," Yang said.
Yang also defended China's involvement on the Darfur issue, pointing to Beijing's dispatch of peacekeepers and development assistance to Sudan. But he said outsiders had limited influence with the government there.
TIANANMEN MOTHERS
Elsewhere, mothers of people killed during the Tiananmen Square Massacre have joined the list of groups using the Olympics to draw attention to their cause.
In an open letter released yesterday, the Tiananmen Mothers warned the Games would be dogged by lingering guilt and mistrust unless China confronts the truth about the crackdown.
"Is it really possible that, as the host of the 2008 Olympic Games, the government can be at ease allowing athletes from all over the world to tread on this piece of bloodstained soil and participate in the Olympics?" the letter said.
DISSIDENT DETAINED
Meanwhile, police detained an ethnic Mongolian dissident at Beijing airport as he arrived from Mongolia, a country of which he is now a citizen, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center said.
Jiranbayariin Soyolt, originally from Inner Mongolia, was placed in handcuffs when he landed on Jan. 7 from Ulan Bator for a business trip, the center said.
His detention has only just come to light because the government had told his family not to talk to the press, the center said.
‘GLOBAL WARNING’: The infiltration is not just a local problem, as Beijing has been deploying the same tactics worldwide against Western democracies, a report said Between 50,000 and 100,000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan, far more than the National Security Bureau’s previous estimate of 5,000, German journalist and author Jurgen Kremb said on Monday. Kremb presented his research, titled “The War of Spies: How China’s Intelligence Services Are Infiltrating Taiwan — and What Europe Must Learn from It,” at a joint event held by the Taiwan offices of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the European Values Center for Security Policy. The report was published in June in the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau’s Prospect & Exploration Monthly (展望與探索月刊). By spies, he said he was referring to informants,
PRICE STABILIZATION: The Ministry of Economic Affairs has urged the legislature to support the Cabinet’s supplementary budget for state-owned energy companies State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Saturday announced that it would raise domestic gasoline prices by NT$0.7 (US$0.02) per liter and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter this week after international crude oil prices rose above US$100 per barrel last week. Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) yesterday said that it matched CPC’s price adjustments for this week. The decisions end a six-week period during which CPC and Formosa kept fuel prices in Taiwan unchanged. Retail gasoline prices this week would rise to NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively at CPC
More than 100 Taiwanese-Americans, Taiwanese lawmakers and members of civic groups on Saturday marched through New York City to call for Taiwan’s participation in the UN, with Marshall Island Permanent Representative to the UN John Silk joining the event to show support. Participants chanted: “UN for Taiwan” and “Keep Taiwan Free” as they marched through central Manhattan, passing Times Square and Bryant Park before ending near the New York Public Library. The annual march brought together Taiwanese community groups from across the US East Coast. Silk expressed hope that Taiwan would one day be able to participate in UN meetings
Two aides at independent Legislator May Chin’s (高金素梅) office were ordered detained incommunicado yesterday in a broadening probe into alleged Chinese espionage by Chin’s former chief of staff, Chang Chun-chieh (張俊傑). The move to hold Lin I-chun (林怡君) and current chief of staff Chen Chih-huang (陳智葟) in custody came four days after Chang, indicted on corruption charges, cut off his electronic monitoring wristband and jumped bail. The High Prosecutors’ Office said that it believes Chang had developed a Chinese spy ring, which might have operated for more than a decade, with funding from China, and that Lin and Chen were suspected of
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