Strasbourg, 12/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has adopted the report by Vasco Graça Moura (EPP, Portugal) on the Commission's opinion on an EU strategy with China. It points put that China has reacted favourably to this opinion and calls on the country to take practical measures in this connection.
The Parliament notes that EU/China dialogue on a State of Law, civil society and democracy is intensifying. It considers that this dialogue must be accompanied by initiatives and private or public measures, such as exchanges of school and higher education students, setting up contact groups with MPs and stronger cultural relations. The Parliament is calling on the Commission to carry out its commitment, without delay, to open an EU information office in Taipei.
Parliament congratulates China for having recently joined the WTO and supports the progress it has made in economic and social reforms but stresses that China must definitely accomplish greater progress in terms of laying down the legal framework for fully integrating into the global market. Parliament is calling on the Commission and Member States to exercise a more efficient control of Chinese products and for it to point out to the Chinese authorities that the EU cannot in any circumstances accept products coming from forced labour camps. China has been called on to cease this practice.
Parliament is convinced that the EU's support for the policy of a single China is directly linked to its commitment to a peaceful solution to its differences in the Pacific, in favour of negotiation, dialogue and confidence building measures instead of threats of using force: China's option to reverting to military force to settle its differences with Taiwan, is therefore not accepted. The EP reiterates its appeal to the Commission, Council and Member States, as well as to the international community to strengthen co-operation with the Tibetan government as the legitimate representative of the Tibetan people and that they use their political influence on the Chinese government to encourage the authorities in Peking ad the Tibetan government in exile to negotiate, under the leadership of the Secretary General of the United Nations, an agreement on a new statute for Tibet, which could be signed and applied in the near future. Parliament is seriously concerned by the increasing number of executions in China and the link between them and the supply of human organs for transplants. It calls on the Chinese government to abolish the death penalty and speed up legal reforms. It also calls on China to use the occasion of the Olympic Games in 2008 to adopt international human rights standards.