By BRIAN LAGHI
Beijing — China is making considerable strides in reducing abuses of human rights, Paul Martin said yesterday, even as its government was clamping down on public displays of mourning after the death of reform-minded leader Zhao Ziyang.
After arriving in Beijing for a three-day visit in which he will work to build trade with the booming Chinese market, the Prime Minister warned publicly yesterday that the country’s explosive economic performance requires that it improve its human rights. He also said international pressure on China to build a freer society is working.
“The fact is, there’s been considerable progress,” Mr. Martin told reporters late yesterday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. “But there is no doubt that we would like to see the Chinese government go much further.”
Mr. Martin was to give a speech later today, a copy of which was distributed to reporters early, in which he said China must work to promote rights, not just reduce abuses.
“As China grows as an economic and political force, there will be new opportunities — and there will be new obligations, too,” says the speech, which Mr. Martin is to deliver to a Chinese and Canadian business group.
“Rights must be respected. But they must also be cultivated. In this regard, there must be a positive transformation that matches the pace of China’s economic transformation.”
Mr. Martin issued a similar message to Mr. Wen in face-to-face meetings yesterday.
“I stated during our discussions that economic reforms have to be coupled with respect for human rights,” Mr. Martin said after the meeting. Officials said the Prime Minister told Mr. Wen that Canadians are sometimes bewildered that China is doing so well economically, but has yet to make similar progress on rights issues.
Wenran Jiang, a China expert at the University of Alberta, said Beijing has become somewhat inured to public and private pleas for human rights when receiving Western leaders.
Prof. Jiang said the Chinese government has come to realize that visitors have to make comments to satisfy public opinion back home.
“There is almost an arrangement set up now between Chinese leaders and those of foreign advanced industrialized countries: They expect Canada and others to raise these issues,” Prof. Jiang said. “It’s formulaic.”
Conservative MP Jason Kenney, who is on the mission, said Mr. Martin should have been tougher with Mr. Wen.
“Premier Wen, with whom he met today, participated in the Tiananmen crackdown and President Hu was former Communist Party boss in Tibet during one of the most brutal periods of oppression of Tibetan Buddhism,” Mr. Kenney said. “Yet I don’t think the Prime Minister has raised those issues with them.”
Mr. Martin told reporters that, until recently, China would never have accepted a letter from Canadian diplomatic officials expressing concern about 10 individuals who are either in jail or had been disciplined for speaking out against the regime. The Prime Minister told Mr. Wen that he will monitor how well the country does.
The discussion came at a sensitive time for the Chinese, given the death this week of Mr. Zhao, the former leader who was put under house arrest for 15 years after attempting to push forward a government reform agenda. Mr. Zhao’s administration allowed talk of democratic reform to flourish in the late 1980s, only to see it quashed in the massacre at Tiananmen Square.
Asked yesterday whether he’d consider pressing home his point by dropping into the Zhao home to pay his respects — as some local citizens are doing — Mr. Martin demurred, saying his schedulers have him fully booked.
“That’s not on the schedule at this time,” he said. “I’ll talk to those who control my life, but I can just tell you that it’s not on the schedule at the present time.”
The government has sent a letter of sympathy. Chinese leaders have tried to keep a lid on remembrances of Mr. Zhao, going so far as to delete references to him from the country’s internal Internet system. At one point yesterday, a Canadian television crew was questioned for about 20 minutes after its members attempted to shoot footage at his home. Mr. Kenney said he will try to visit the house today and said Mr. Martin should also go.
“I think that would be an elegant way for the Prime Minister to express Canada’s solidarity with the human rights in the world’s largest country,” Mr. Kenney said.
Mr. Kenney said hundreds of thousands of Chinese are in forced labour camps, the Roman Catholic Church continues to be illegal, and freedom of the press is curtailed.
“It would be an elegant way to make his point,” he said.
Mr. Martin said he and Mr. Wen spent a considerable amount of time on human rights and that Mr. Wen actually raised the matter. Mr. Martin said he talked about the freedom of the press and the Chinese decision last week to bar two journalists from the tour.
With a report from Steven Chase
