AFP: China Rights Motion is "the Right Thing", Says White House

February 28, 2001

WASHINGTON, Feb 28, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) U.S. President George W. Bush believes sponsoring a resolution critical of China at the UN Human Rights Commission is "the right thing" to do, even if passage is far from assured, the White House said Tuesday.

"That resolution will have the support of the United States because President Bush believes it is the right thing to do," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Under former president Bill Clinton, the United States co-sponsored a resolution against China in Geneva in 2000, but Beijing, with its habitual massive lobbying effort, stopped the move in its tracks.

"We will see what the ultimate outcome is, but that's why the president is advocating it," he said, a day after Bush's administration said it would back such a resolution and charged in a new report that Beijing's "poor" human-rights record was getting worse.

The decision is the keenly awaited first major policy move on China by the new Republican administration, which came to power vowing to take a firm line with Beijing's Communist rulers.

In a double swipe at the Chinese government, the decision was made official alongside the U.S. annual report on human rights, which detailed a catalog of alleged abuses in China over the past year.

"I think if you read the report it's hard to come to a conclusion that a resolution is not justified," said acting Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Parmly.

Sources within Bush's administration said 10 days ago a consensus had been reached in favor of backing a resolution condemning China at the UN Commission on Human Rights, which opens in Geneva next month.

Monday's announcement was the first official confirmation.

Exiled Chinese dissidents -- including several jailed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests -- and a bipartisan coalition in Congress have applied intense pressure to persuade the Bush administration to take the step.

((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)