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Clinton to meet China civil leaders with focus on rights
2009-02-21
BEIJING (AFP) - Hillary Clinton was to meet civil society leaders in Beijing on Sunday, a day after dissidents accused China of trying to silence them during the visit of the US secretary of state. As her maiden overseas mission drew to a close, China's human rights record threatened to emerge again despite efforts by Clinton and her Chinese hosts to gloss over their differences on the issue in meetings that had focused on the economy and climate change. With official meetings over, Clinton kicked off the third and final day of her highly anticipated first visit to China with a church service, due to be followed by audiences with civil society leaders. Clinton entered the church in western Beijing amid tight security, with surrounding streets blocked off. Plainclothes police could be seen escorting some church visitors away and into unmarked cars but there were no disturbances. Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi largely agreed to disagree on human rights as they set the stage for future joint action on the economy and climate change, giving hope for a new era of cooperation on those issues. "Now it is more important than any time in the past to deepen and develop China-US relations amid the spreading financial crisis and increasing global challenges," President Hu Jintao told Clinton, according to state media. Clinton on Friday had angered human rights groups by saying she would not allow the issue to block progress on those pressing global problems. The identities of the civil society leaders Clinton planned to meet after church have not been divulged by the United States. But Chinese activists said Saturday that several dissidents had been harassed, detained or warned not to speak out or meet with Clinton. "I am under house arrest because Hillary Clinton came," Zeng Jinyan, one of China's most prominent dissidents and wife of jailed activist Hu Jia, told AFP via an Internet message. In a blog posting, Zeng wrote that police controls forced her Saturday to scrap a meeting with Gao Yaojie, an AIDS activist from central China who was due to arrive in Beijing ahead of a planned meeting with Clinton on Sunday. The rights group Chinese Human Rights Defenders said police had also told Jiang Qisheng, a Tiananmen activist previously jailed for his pro-democracy work, not to meet with Clinton. The group named other activists it said had been harassed and were notable for signing Charter 'O8, a petition released last year calling for political reform in China that authorities in Beijing are apparently furious over. Clinton, who has also visited Japan, Indonesia and South Korea on the current trip, defended her stance on Saturday. "I have said the promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of US global foreign policy. I have raised the issue on every stop on this trip and I have done so here in my conversations with the foreign minister," she said. Clinton also met President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday.
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