China Tells U.S. To Back Off

China told the United States on Thursday not to interfere with a dissident round-up as former Tiananmen Square student leaders protesting the detentions entered the second day of a hunger strike.

"We are opposed to any country, including the United States, interfering in China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told news briefing.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the United States deplored the detentions and said a strong protest had been filed by the United States embassy in Beijing.

"We believe that peaceful activities of this kind and other forms of peaceful expression that they've been involved in are fundamental human rights that should be protected by all governments," Lockhart said.

But in a replay of past frequent Sino-U.S. disputes over Beijing's curbs on political freedoms, China's spokesman shrugged off the criticism and told the United States to butt out.

"I would like to point out that this is a matter of China's internal affairs. No other country has the right to interfere," Zhu told a news briefing.

He said: "Xu Wenli is suspected of activities which have harmed national security and his acts have violated relevant criminal codes of the People's Republic of China."

Zhu refused to specify what laws were broken or how the state was endangered.

The jailed activists could face life in prison if convicted of the harshest measures under China's vague state security law. The ruling Communist Party has resorted to the law to silence dissent since it went into effect last year.

The detentions prompted two former Tiananmen Square student leaders to begin a 48-hour hunger strike on Wednesday. Seventeen other activists announced they would join in a relay-style fast around the country, with one picking up as another ended.

The strikers were demanding the immediate release of key members of the would-be opposition party -- Xu, Qin Yongmin, and former student leader Wang Youcai.

Xu, 55, chairman of the Chinese Democratic Party's cells in Beijing and the northern port city of Tianjin, has spent more than a decade in jail for his role in the 1978-79 Democracy Wall mvement.

Qin, 45, was formally detained on Monday in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, on suspicion of "plotting to overthrow the state." If indicted and convicted, Qin could be sentenced to life in prison.

Wang, 32, previously jailed for three years for his role in the ill-fated 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, was arrested on Monday. A human rights group said on Thursday that prosecutors in Hangzhou have approved charging Wang with inciting the overthrow the state, a charge which could bring a life sentence.

Nine additional members of the Chinese Democratic Party were still in police custody, said the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

The round-ups came amid recent steps by Beijing to improve its image on human rights at home and abroad.

In October China signed the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The pact, which enshrines freedom of assembly and speech and other rights, awaits ratification by China's parliament.

Zhu told reporters there was "absolutely no contradiction at all" between China's support for these treaties and its arrests of the dissidents.

A letter by 191 dissidents from 22 provinces said the detentions illustrated the authorities' "hypocrisy."

As part of ongoing legal reforms, China on Tuesday lifted a ban on public trials, allowing citizens to enter courtrooms and view proceedings for the first time.

Western observers said the step marked the early stages of a reform process that could one day lead to broader rights and freedoms for Chinese people.

"Over the long term, effective judicial reform and a sound legal system hold out the best hope for human rights," said one Western diplomat.

The Communist Party has never allowed another political party to form since it took power in 1949.

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