COURTESY TRANSLATION
"Dear Friend and Colleague,
convinced
to
the
During my visit to China, from the 19th to the 22nd May, I
met the Secretary-General of the Party, Jiang Zemin, Prime Minister
Li Peng and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. All three showed great
interest in resuming and strengthening the dialogue with the West. To
me they seemed
that China could contribute
setting-up of a new international order following the end of the Cold
This feeling was confirmed subsequently when the government of
Peking backed the American initiative to start talks, amongst the
permanent members of the Security Council, on the control of arms
sales in the wake of the Gulf war.
War.
As for the respect of human rights, I have noticed a
positive evolution and more willingness to discuss the problem. The
Chinese are, for instance, prepared to welcome an Italian
parliamentary delegation that will be able to visit Tibet next
August. They have not
not avoided discussing the subject which was
previously considered an unbearable interference.
Dialogue and cooperation with the West are after all the
path to follow in order to encourage China to continue with its
reforms policy and to pursue a stance closer to ours as far as the
observance of some fundamental liberties is concerned.
I think, therefore,
that the moment has come for us to
start thinking about the need to improve our relations with China,
which represents a necessary
reference point for the European
Community's action, not only in Asia. Especially since the Community
has reassessed, or is in the process of doing so, its instruments of
dialogue and cooperation with some of its major interlocutors, from
the United States to Japan, in parallel with the deepening of its
integration process.
./.