Brussels, 06/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The new session of the EU/China "dialogue on human rights" took place during 10 hours last week in Beijing (see EUROPE of 29 September p.5 and 28 September p.3) produced highly mitigate results. "The atmosphere was much better that during the last meeting in March the Chinese part tried to seriously answer our concerns and no question has been studied, which was very positive", announced to the press, in Beijing, Jean Feix-Paganon who lead a delegation of fifteen odd people representing the French Presidency, the next Presidency (Swedish) and by the European Commission. The Chinese are conforming to the exercise and "admit that their system includes numerous deficiencies", he felt.
During this session, around ten subjects where raised, notably those of the multipartism, the death penalty, freedom of expression and association, arbitrary detention, attacks against State security" (which replaced in the Chinese penal code the "counter-revolutionary crimes"), the situation in Tibet and in the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang.
The European diplomat, cited by AFP, felt that there had been some results on the issue of imprisoned dissidents for whom the EU called for measures of clemency, and "a positive evolution" concerning the "re-education through work" camps, where thousands of people are sent without trial. "A member of the delegation admitted that the system of re-education through work camps (..) was turned away from its educational vocation to be transformed into a purely repressive mechanism", indicated a diplomat to the "Monde" correspondent in Peking. However Jean Felix-Panagnon recognised that "the more we enter into specific details, the fewer answers we get" and the "no new element has been produced on the ban against the opposition party - the Chinese democratic party -, freedom of expression, or the situation in Tibet and in Xinjiang.