Shanghai Wednesday February 28, 2001

China is opening up to dialogue about human rights, the UN commissioner, Mary Robinson, said yesterday in Beijing - but the banned Falun Gong [group] remains a huge stumbling block.

"It's very clear that the human rights of Falun Gong members are being transgressed," she said after attending a workshop on China's penal system.

However, Ms Robinson believed that Chinese officials were becoming "very open to the need for change and reform". A Chinese parliamentary committee is expected to vote on ratifying an important UN rights covenant today.

Chinese officials claimed that the UN commissioner "did not understand" the threat posed by the Falun Gong.

Jiang Wen, head of the government's "anti-cult" office, said that [group] members in the re-education camps were handled "like doctors treat patients and parents treat children".

Ms Robinson said that the justice minister, Zhang Fusen, defended the system of imprisonment without trial which she was urging China to scrap, though Mr Zhang admitted that it "could be improved".

The human rights dialogue coincides with a ritual exchange of denunciations between the US and China.

The State Department's annual report on human rights abuses said that in 2000 "[China's] poor human rights record worsened, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses".

Beijing counterattacked yesterday by issuing a paper in which the Chinese State Council called American democracy "a rich man's game" in which the presidency could be sold to the highest bidder".

In spite of its negative tone, the State Department report contains several passages apparently written in by the Bush administration to put a better gloss on China's record.

It noted that "senior officials openly acknowledged abuses such as using torture to extort confessions", and conceded that "many Chinese [have] more individual choice [and] greater access to information."

China issued awards this week to some 1,600 participants in the crackdown on the Falun Gong, claiming that it had won a "great victory" over the [group]. Wearing paper rosettes at a meeting in the Great Hall of the People, they were congratulated for their "compassion" towards those misled by an "[Chinese government's slanderous word]".