|\ .
I think
to withdraw the MFN until certain things happen". what the other way round is: Look, we are dissatisfied with
a number of aspects of human rights violations and activities in China, we would like you to improve these, change these, and discuss these with you, and as a result it is less likely that the MFN would be at risk. And I think that is the way it ought to be done because if you do it the other way I think the Chinese like most sovereign countries would say, "Go jump in the lake", about being told: "You either do this now or you get that". I think it's always better to negotiate knowing full well that they are sensitive about the economic issues involved, and I think that is the most effective and practical way to go about it.
Mr MacKellar: I think they did display on a number of occasions both formally, but particularly informally, their understanding, or their appreciation of the fact that human rights issues were of concern, particularly to the West, and that they were going to have to come to terms with this. There were two areas in informal conversations that they have mentioned; the other one was the environment, the issues of the environment are now starting to be talked about quite noticeably in China. But they did have an appreciation that human rights issues weren't going to go
away.
Question: Did you meet or were you able to examine the circumstances of any of the so-called people being punished for counter-revolutionary crimes?
Senator Schacht: We presented a list in Beijing of 211 names of people who are well known, and many others as well, asking for information about their health, their well-being, their sentences, and we've left that list with them. We hope that we can get responses from them. When we were there last time we did get some information whilst in country, we hope we can get some this time. Some of the information we are seeking is on cases that we don't have much detail at all, we don't even know the names of some people in Xinjiang Province who have been apparently arrested, that we want to find out who they are, what they have been sentenced for, how long, what gaol they are in, and so on. But as last time, we do not publicly mention specific names of any individual case because the view is that in many cases that may worsen the situation for a particular prisoner.
Mr MacKellar: We did raise the issue in Urumqi as well, with those people from
Senator Schacht: We gave a list in Urumqi and also a list was presented on their behalf in Shanghai?
Question:
How many names were on the Urumqi list?