Brussels/Copenhagen, 25/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - At the 5th bilateral summit on Tuesday in Copenhagen, European and Chinese leaders held "very frank and very open discussions" on human rights. This was emphasised by conference host, the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who added that this meeting had been very fruitful and interesting and had underlined their Sino-European friendship. During the press conference, the President of the European Union, Romano Prodi stressed the increasing role of the Euro in Chinese currency reserves and foreign currencies, as well as the "very, very positive" perspectives in the long-term for trade between the enlarged Union and the most populated country in the world.
The President of the European Council mentioned that they had discussed their worries about the death penalty, torture and ill treatment of ethnic minorities, as well as Tibet and Xinjiang. The President was optimistic in this regard and envisaged progress in China in the years to come. Replying to a journalist who asked him about the repression of Falungong, the Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji said that they had never persecuted members of a spiritual movement, which he described as an outlaw organisation that persecutes the Chinese people and creates public disorder. The Minister said that this didn't belong to human rights questions and that they hoped that the outside world would deal with the Falungong issue with objectivity. Other sensitive issues discussed without any tangible results although European leaders slipped it into the joint declaration and that they hoped to soon be able to carry out exploratory discussion on a possible agreement o re-admission of illegal immigrants coming from China and that they had had to convince Mr Zhu to re-launch discussion on the allocation of a status of destination agreed with the EU. They also believe that such an agreement would take into account the problems involved in returning.
Just before the summit, Ming-min Peng, one of the main advisers to the President of Taiwan and principal contender in the memorable 1996 Presidential elections, accused China of "terrorism" against Taiwan. 350 Chinese missiles are positioned on the other side of the Formosa Straits and their number is increasing by 50 every year, he explained. He described how they were aimed at them and if that wasn't terrorism, he didn't know what it could otherwise be. This declaration took place during a CEPS meeting in Brussels last Thursday. Mr Ming-Min Peng also stressed the "humiliation" that the island country, anchored in democracy was subject to, given the refusal of the international community to allow it to join the UN, the WHO and ASEAN because of Chinese opposition. Peking was also exercising strong pressures on Europe by playing the game of " the huge Chinese market and the trade opportunities it offered" in exchange for Taiwan's exclusion from the international community and its suffocation, declared Mr Ming-Min Peng