Chinese envoy urges patience on rights

JEFF SALLOT
Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — China's ambassador said yesterday that Canadians should not point fingers at his country on human rights, in a speech that stoked new debate about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hard-line China policy.

Ambassador Lu Shumin won applause from many at a business luncheon when he said Sino-Canadian relations should be marked by mutual respect rather than finger-pointing.

"Learning from each other with tolerance and respect will prove far more productive for common progress and prosperity than standing on the roof and pointing fingers at each other," Mr. Lu said.

Meanwhile, Falun Gong members and human-rights demonstrators assembled on Parliament Hill to thank Mr. Harper for his recent pronouncement that Canadian democratic values will not be sacrificed for the "almighty dollar" in relations with China.

At the same time, witnesses from PEN Canada, the free-speech advocacy organization, and Chinese expatriate groups told a House of Commons subcommittee that a 10-year-old official "dialogue" program with China on rights is a failure and should be suspended.

Mr. Lu told the Canadian Club of Ottawa that China will not build a harmonious society based on the rule of law and democracy overnight. "It takes effort over time."

Speaking later with reporters, Mr. Lu said China had made "tremendous improvement in human rights," citing the country's increased ability to feed its enormous population. Food is a basic human right, Chinese officials often say.

He didn't think the diplomatic contretemps that arose between Canada and China at a recent summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Hanoi would cause lasting harm to bilateral relations. "China-Canada relations will continue to grow."

But when pressed again on rights and democracy, Mr. Lu said these are things that are hard to achieve. "You have to do it to your own national conditions."

The attitude that somehow rights are different for the Chinese infuriates rights groups. David Cozac of PEN Canada told the Commons subcommittee that basic human rights are universal. China's constitution, he noted, contains guarantees of free speech that are disregarded by Chinese officialdom.

Representatives from PEN, the Toronto Association for Democracy in China and Falun Gong, the spiritual group that is banned in China, said previous Canadian governments miscalculated Ottawa's influence when they pursued a bilateral human-rights dialogue with China for 10 years rather than co-sponsoring UN resolutions calling on China to improve its record.

The Chinese have been sending progressively more junior officials to these annual sessions, and they have produced no concrete results, the groups said.

But several business people at the ambassador's luncheon speech thought Mr. Harper's hard-line approach to China might be too rigid.

Previous Canadian governments have been able to deal with China on human rights without making the Chinese government lose face, said Paul Stinson, the president of Capra International, a Canadian biotech company that does business in China.

But the Harper government, he said, has set the wrong tone in dealings with the Chinese, putting Canadian business at risk of losing opportunities.