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CNN Live Saturday

Can U.S. Encourage China to Curtail Human Rights Abuses?

Aired July 28, 2001 - 12:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Now to our other top story, Colin Powell's whirlwind trip to China. The secretary of state hit the ground running, and brought up several contentious issues in meetings with Chinese leaders. Among them, U.S. concerns about China exporting weapons technology to countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea, and China's record on human rights.

Trade is another major concern in U.S. relations with China. It also concerns Taiwan, a rival to the Beijing government on several fronts. It's a complex issue.

And joining us for some insight is John Tkacik, a fellow with the Heritage Foundation and Xiao Qiang, who is the executive director of human rights in China.

Welcome to both of you. Glad you could join us.

Mr. Xiao, let's start with you. Colin Powell, Secretary of State, said that they had agreed, the leaders agreed resume talks on human rights issues. Tell us what you think the state of human rights issues is right now and what you think could make some progress right away?

XIAO QIANG, DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA: Well, I think that present -- the current situation the U.S.-China high-level visit will present an opportunity and challenge for U.S. to set a China policy with an important human rights dimension. The last few days, we see the few individual cases being released under the U.S. demands.

KELLEY: That's right, the two Chinese scholars. What do you think of that step?

QIANG: Well, I think that's a good step. And I'm very happy for these people and their families. However, the issue is systematic. The issue hasn't gone away. The Chinese government has misused the state secret law and state security law, actually detain the Chinese citizens. There's hundreds of same cases in China. They just don't have a green card or they don't have U.S. ties.

KELLEY: Mr. Tkacik, what do you think of that step? Is it a step in the right direction? And how far does China have to go?

JOHN TKACIK, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, I think that it is step in right direction. I think what shows is the United States fast more leverage over Chinese than perhaps we expected in the past. The fact that Secretary Powell was able to strong arm Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan at Hanoi for a 24 hour deadline.

He said basically if these guys aren't out in 24 hours, I'm not going to Beijing. That tells me that there's quite a bit of leverage that the U.S. administration has between now and October when President Bush goes to exert the same sort of leverage.

KELLEY: Mr. Tkacik also, Secretary Powell assured Beijing that the missile defense system that's planned would not threaten China. China's not in favor of this and China has actually, you know, been meeting with the Russians as well. What do you see happening there? What do you see as down the road?

TKACIK: Well, I think that the threat -- not the threat to the Chinese, but it was very interesting to me that Secretary Powell said the major issue is that the United States missile defense system doesn't threaten China's strategic defenses. And last week Undersecretary of State Bowlen said it didn't threaten China ICBMs.

The interesting thing here is that what it does threaten then is China's short to mid-range missiles that are targeted on Taiwan. And I think that's the real thing that the Chinese are worried about now.

KELLEY: Mr. Xiao, trade so important between the United States and China. And you think that probably the United States should continue to engage China. How do you do that and still push on humans rights and other issues?

QIANG: Well, I certainly support trade with China, but trade should not be a replacement of human rights policy. And in order to have an effective human rights policy, it has to be consistent, it has have real benchmarks. It has to focus on the real issue rather than just two hostages.

The real issues how China government treat its own people in institutional way. And that kind of changes cannot be just changed by U.S. policy, but the right policy can really facilitate the internal changes such as the legal reform, such as the organized defense, and the expanding individual freedom.

And the U.S. has to make a long-term strategy and make the Chinese government realize. And that is a direction they still have to go. They don't have other choice if they want to be respected in international community.

KELLEY: Mr. Xiao, you talk about expectations. You talk about laying out, you know, clear frameworks for what the United States expects from China. How do you do that?

QIANG: Well the recent case is a good example. Dr. Gao Zhan and Xua Donghua released, but the issue is the Chinese government, has been using the state security law and state secrets law as the political repressive weapon against all kinds of organized events and restricts freedom of expressions. The U.S. government should focus on get Chinese government the -- complying with the international of covenant of political rights and civil rights at the U.N. level and have a concrete agenda when they dialogue with China on human rights. To measure step by step, whether China, the legal reform and the political reform have moved towards that directive.

KELLEY: Mr. Tkacik, you've got a lot years after stake. 24 years to refresh my memory here. 24 years at the State Department, served in Hong Kong, Peking, Taiwan. So you've seen for number of years you've watched this area. Tell us what you think the state of the China is right now, and just the near future that you see happening with the relationship between China and the United States?

TKACIK: Well, it's sort of hard to boil down 20 years in a nutshell. But I would say China's human rights had improved vastly from 1979 when I was there right after the call of the Gang of Four to 1989. The Tiananmen massacre was a terrible watershed. And human rights actually and political reforms have backtracked for the last 10 years.

Now, one of the things that this latest collection of arrests of American citizens and American linked scholars shows out is the Chinese can't really expect that their own legal rights will be respected by their own country, unless they're carrying a foreign passport or unless they've been living in a foreign country. This to me is one of the real problems in China right now. And I'm hoping that from here on in, if we continue to push for legal reforms, that perhaps next ten years will show some improvement in Chinese legal structure and the respect for human rights.

KELLEY: And we'll continue to follow it and monitor it. Xiao Qiang, who is the executive director of human rights in China and John Tkacik, who is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Nice to have you both with us. Thanks.

TKACIK: Thank you.

QIANG: Thank you, Donna.

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