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Merkel seen as tough on rights in China trip
2007-08-30
Visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a joint press conference with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing. Merkel has raised human rights and other sensitive issues with China's leaders, while bluntly telling them to respect the rules of international trade and development. |
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel's straight talking on freedoms during her three-day China trip signals a departure from a traditionally low-key European stance on sensitive issues, analysts said. Merkel invited President Hu Jintao to discuss human rights, told members of the country's top think tank that people should have the freedom to say what they wanted, and met a journalist who had fallen foul of Beijing censorship. "It's rather courageous of her to try and raise these issues," said Brian Bridges, an expert on Sino-European relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. "On the whole, European leaders tend to go rather softly, softly on human rights... she is sticking her neck out a little bit, I think." Merkel's performance during her China trip early this week won praise from Germany's own media and was compared favourably with the more business-focused diplomacy of her predecessors Gerhard Schroeder and Helmut Kohl. "Merkel managed to strike the notes and make the gestures that meant that her self-confident representation of Western interests didn't appear as a provocation," the pro-business Handelsblatt said in an editorial. Analysts say the international spotlight on China is making it easier for foreign dignitaries to use more forceful language. China is under intense scrutiny as the host of the 2008 Olympics, while a wave of high-profile incidents -- from mining disasters to product recalls -- has drawn attention to a darker side of China's reforms. However, analysts also speculated that Merkel might have been motivated to speak up because of her own personal history as a citizen of non-democratic East Germany during the formative years of her life. "Certainly the experiences she would have had as a younger person in the system of East Germany undoubtedly will colour some of her thinking," said Bridges. "She could well be drawing on part of her own experience and her own perception of what happened to her, to her family and her environment as a younger person." Sources said Merkel's direct demeanour was not universally approved by her audience at the Beijing think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Other scholars, however, said they did not mind the German leader's manner, which they described as "frank," "practical" and "business-like." "Europe is just as concerned about human rights in China as the United States," said Lian Yuru, a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies. "The difference is the United States uses human rights as a foreign policy tool to put pressure on China, while the Europeans do it more out of principle, not because they want to pressurise China." Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, welcomed Merkel's decision to meet with members of civil society. These included Li Datong, something of an icon of Chinese media's struggle for freedom after losing his job as editor of a hard-hitting weekly supplement in the China Youth Daily last year. "Human rights had fallen off the agenda (of Germany's diplomacy on China) completely, which was shameful for the Schroeder government, because it showed complete callousness to Chinese people's suffering," said Bequelin. "It's one thing to have a real policy to engage with China and do business with China. It's quite another to airbrush a very serious human rights situation." Germany's business community is unlikely to view Merkel's rights-focused agenda with any sympathy, according to Bequelin. "It's cheap labour, no trade unions, a pliable work force and cosy personal relationships with high-ranking leaders in Beijing," he said. "It seems there is a collusion of interests between many international corporations and the Chinese government, because they put profits above principle."
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