BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the issues of human rights during a meeting in Berlin yesterday and stressed that a free press would be crucial for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“We spoke about human rights and I made clear that these rights are inalienable, that they apply everywhere,” Merkel told reporters at a joint news conference.
“With a view to the Olympic Games in Beijing, which we are all excited about, I also stressed the importance of a free press,” she said.
Chinese state news agency Xinhua announced rules on Sunday requiring foreign media to seek approval to distribute news, pictures and graphics within China.
The rules seek to bar international financial information companies, including Reuters and Bloomberg, from selling news directly to Chinese customers. Xinhua has cited national security concerns as a reason for the measures.
International rights groups have denounced the new regulations as another Chinese attack on freedom of information and a backward step in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The meeting also touched on copyright piracy and Iran’s nuclear programme, Merkel said.
“We talked about intellectual property protection and the need for more reliability for those who want to invest in China,” she said.
Meanwhile, Chinese Prime Minister reiterated his opposition to imposing sanctions against Iran, saying a solution to the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program could still be reached through peaceful efforts.“Our goal is to find a solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, but sanctions do not necessarily lead to this goal, they can also achieve the opposite,” Wen said through a translator after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“So long as there is still hope, we should continue to move ahead with our peaceful efforts,” he said, but did not elaborate.
Wen’s comments came as a Chinese Foreign Ministry called on Tehran to work together with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear monitoring body, to resolve the dispute.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, France, the US, Russia and China — along with Germany, are offering Iran economic and political rewards if it agrees to consider a long-term moratorium on enrichment and commits to an enrichment freeze before talks to discuss details of their package.China and Russia have resisted US-led efforts to move to sanctions quickly, despite the expiry of an August 31 deadline on Iran to freeze work on developing the technology. Instead, they favor continued negotiations.
Outside the chancellery where Wen and Merkel met, about a dozen members of the Falun Gong spiritual group, which is banned in China, waved banners in protest.
A comparable number of China supporters stood next to them holding national flags.
Both Wen and Merkel highlighted the strength of bilateral economic ties, with the Chinese premier saying he expected trade volume between the countries to rise to $80bn this year from roughly $70bn in 2005.
However, when Merkel was asked whether Germany could seek changes to a European Union arms embargo on China when it takes over the rotating presidency of the bloc next year, she replied that it was “not on the agenda”.
Merkel’s predecessor Gerhard Schroeder had pressed for a lifting of the embargo, which was put in place after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and which Beijing wants dismantled. Merkel opposed Schroeder’s push to lift the ban.
