Amnesty calls China's Jiang rights "scoundrel"

May 30 2001

By Sonya Hepinstall WASHINGTON,

 Amnesty International on Wednesday named Chinese President Jiang Zemin as one of its human rights ``scoundrels'' of 2000 in a condemnation of China's rights record that the group said did not appear to be improving with expanding trade ties.

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Energy company Unocal (NYSE:UCL - news) was also deemed a scoundrel for providing financial support to the military government in Myanmar (Burma) with its operations there.

The five ``human rights scoundrels'' cited were not the worst offenders but were representative of the many who fail to protect and respect human rights, William Schulz, the group's U.S. director, told a news conference to release a global report on rights abuses in 2000.

``We include Jiang Zemin for maintaining the Chinese Communist Party's grip on power through the widespread use of torture, persecution of minority groups and the denial of freedom of speech, association and religion,'' Schulz said.

In particular he cited the crackdown on the spiritual movement Falun Gong and the detention of about a half dozen academics of Chinese descent, including U.S. resident Gao Zhan whose husband spoke at the news conference.

Falun Gong, which practices a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism and traditional Chinese exercises, has been outlawed in China as an ``evil cult'' and a danger to national security. &Schulz was not able to say whether the human rights situation in China was generally improving but said expanding global trade ties did not appear to be making a difference.

According to the human rights watchdog's calculations, last year in China some 1,000 people were executed, 1,500 convicted and sentenced to death, 230,000 people were in prison without trial and hundreds were tortured in Tibet.

``There is no evidence that trade ties have improved the situation,'' Schulz said.

U.S. TRADE WITH CHINA, VIETNAM HOT ISSUE

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he will ask the U.S. Congress this week to renew the normal trade relations status which allows Chinese exports into the United States at the same low tariffs as goods from most countries.

Even though Congress is widely expected to approve the trade status, lawmakers could take the opportunity to attach conditions or criticize China's human rights record.

Bush is also expected next week to send up to Congress for a vote a U.S.-Vietnam trade pact agreed last July.

Asked what effect increased trade might have on Hanoi, Schulz said it was too early to say and reiterated: ``Trade alone in our experience is not sufficient to improve a human rights situation in a country.''

Amnesty had no position on whether China should host the 2008 Summer Olympics but Schulz added his group had kept in contact with members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will decide the winning bid on July 13.

``We certainly would hope that ... the Olympic Committee would be willing to use its leverage in terms of raising concerns with the Chinese about some of our (prisoner) cases,'' he said.

Others on the ``scoundrels'' list included California-based Unocal, which has a 28 percent interest in the Yadana natural gas project in Myanmar. Human rights groups believe the military employed forced labor in constructing a pipeline that connects the gas field to Thailand.

The United States did not escape Amnesty's criticism, with the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole included in the list of scoundrels for its role in carrying out the U.S. death penalty. Texas executed 40 prisoners in 2000.

``It is no wonder that the U.S. was ousted from the United Nations Human Rights Commission,'' Schulz said, adding the United States ``stands in the same shameful death penalty league as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.''