07 JUN '91 11:37
P.6
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Q:
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of the official British view towards the whole affair, because China, not withstanding some world wide protests and condemnation, China is still setting a very tough - stance against pro-democracy movement in China.
Britain's official response to this?
What is
Well certainly let's go back to Tiananmen Square. We made our reaction to it perfectly plain then and we
haven't changed our view. It was a gross abuse of human
rights and we have certainly made representations to the Chinese government when we have met them about the human
rights and our concerns. We believe that this is not
interfering in the internal policies of China. This is
a legitimate concern which we raised not only with the Chinese government but with every government. So we are not picking on China, we have made our views perfectly
plain. I have made it perfectly plain to Tian Zeng Pei
=
with the
Vice Foreign Minister and the
Secretary of State made it clear on his visit. Since
then, since the events of Tiananmen Square there have
been some signs that the Chinese have moved.
If you
look at the trials of some of the dissidents, they
weren't as harsh as they could have been by Chinese standards in the past. Although we in the west would
regard some of the sentences as quite hard, they weren't perhaps as tough as one might have expected and if one looks more recently, one will see the rehabilitation of
3 Vice Ministers back in total power who were involved
in the situation just before Tiananmen Square. So there
are some good signs. We cannot tell another country how
to run itself, we can make perfectly clear to them, and
we have a duty to do so, where we believe they are
contravening the human rights of people.
Are you saying that you actually have made personal
representation to Mr Dens himself, M. Deng Xiaoping
No because we haven't seen Mr Deng
It was Tian
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