China should release those of its citizens imprisoned since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown if it wants the EU to end its arms ban, a senior EU delegation told their hosts in Beijing on Wednesday.
The request for an amnesty, one of four areas in which the EU is seeking better human rights, raises the bar for lifting the 16-year embargo, making a change unlikely this year.
The linkage is embarrassing for Beijing's communist leaders, who see removal of the "discriminatory" ban as a central goal of its improved relations with Europe. It is also a setback for the French president, Jacques Chirac, and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, who have pushed hard for a June date for the 25-state union to lift its ban, imposed after the 1989 bloody suppression of demonstrations for democracy.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU commissioner for external relations, maintained that the June target was still reachable if both sides made concessions, but put the onus on China.
"Lifting the embargo will of course be easier if the climate is right," she said. "Above all, we need to help persuade our public opinion China is making concrete steps to improve human rights."
According to a European diplomat taking part in the negotiations, the EU has urged Beijing to ratify the UN convention on political and civil rights; release Tiananmen prisoners; reform China's re-education-through-labor penal system; and ease media censorship.
Although not described as preconditions, the very public linkage creates a stumbling block. Accepting the four proposals would cost Beijing a huge loss of face. The foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing (李肇星), said it was "unreasonable and unhelpful" to link the embargo to China's rights record.
"Any attempt to impose one's own values on another country is an embodiment of disrespect to the human rights of the other country," he told a joint news conference with his EU counterpart.
Chinese officials argue that the ban is a Cold War relic, and fails to take account of dramatic changes since 1989.
But Beijing has made no effort to address what caused the ban -- the breaking up of the demonstrations on June 4, 1989 by troops and tanks of the People's Liberation Army who killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters. There has been no inquiry or punishment of those responsible.
Although human rights was the reason for the ban in the first place, the question is only belatedly becoming part of the discussion about lifting it.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
RSS