Bush to push China human rights censure at U.N.

Saturday February 17, 1:46 AM Bush to push China human rights censure at U.N. - Officials said on February 16 the Bush administration is set to sponsor a U.N. resolution faulting Beijing's human rights record. REUTERS Reuters Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration, in its first major decision on China, will sponsor a U.N. resolution faulting Beijing's human rights record, administration officials said on Friday. "There is a consensus in the administration to go ahead with the resolution because that's what the facts require," a senior official told Reuters. The resolution will be offered when the U.N. Commission on Human Rights holds its annual meeting in Geneva in mid-March. Formal paperwork authorising the action was still being processed and it was unclear when an official announcement of the U.S. position would come. But the decision has been made, the officials said. The annual question of such a resolution traditionally has been a source of extreme irritation between the United States and China. How President George W. Bush and the Chinese government handle it this year could help set the tone for Sino-American relations during his administration. The United States, reflecting strong American concern over Beijing's record, usually sponsors or supports a resolution at the U.N. meeting in Geneva criticising Chinese human rights abuses. Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives in recent days have put bipartisan pressure on Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush to make a strong effort to persuade the U.N. commission to adopt a resolution criticising China's human rights record. FALUN GONG CRACKDOWN, TORTURE CITED China has been faulted for its increasingly harsh treatment of protesters from the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, widespread use of torture and curbs on the Internet. Except for last year, the U.S. campaign on behalf of a U.N. censure largely has been lackluster and symbolic, drawing little backing from other countries. China over the past decade almost always has escaped even a direct vote on the issue. As a result, some China experts and U.S. policymakers have questioned why the United States should again participate in an exercise of questionable value that does little or nothing to change the behaviour of a major world power with whom Washington has lots of other serious issues. Human rights activists were particularly concerned that the new president mount an energetic campaign this year. They fear that Beijing's consistent success in escaping condemnation is undercutting the Geneva process. China, a rising economic, military and political power, has become much more skillful at defusing international outrage over its human rights record, offering bilateral human rights dialogues to countries that do not back the Geneva resolution. But the dialogues have produced little. "A HARD FIGHT" AHEAD A senior U.S. official acknowledged that trying to win support for the China resolution "will be a hard fight." "There might not be much support out there but we think it's (sponsoring a resolution) the right thing to do," he said. A State Department official was in Europe in recent days, sounding out the thinking of allies on the China issue. Divisions among Europeans on how to approach Beijing on the human rights question "have hurt us," one official said. Still, U.S. officials said the Bush administration would mount a "significant" effort to try to get a resolution adopted in Geneva. But whether that would mean Bush or Powell would get directly involved in trying to sway opinion has not been determined. The decision to go forward with the resolution is the first stage, and now the administration will map a campaign to draft the language of a resolution and try to win passage, officials said. Asked how this decision fit into an evolving administration plan for dealing with China which Bush has called a "strategic competitor" - one official said: "This is a part of an honest human rights policy, more than anything else, and a foreign policy fundamentally that believes in freedom and democracy." "What it is with regard to China is a statement that we're going to be consistent with those ideals around the world," he added. [...]