Chinese Walk Out On Albright

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has urged the United Nations to confront China, one of its most powerful members, over Beijing's “widespread denials” of basic freedoms.

The bulk of the Chinese delegation walked out on Albright's speech, the first by a U.S. secretary of state to the 53-nation Human Rights Commission since it was created in 1946.

Albright, who flew from South Asia for her 15-minute address on Thursday, also appealed to the commission to face up to its other big challenge, what she called Russia's “indiscriminate use of force against civilians” in its war against Chechen rebels.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Sidorov said Albright's allegations were “totally unfounded.”

“The war in Chechnya is not against the Chechen people, it's not against the Muslims, but against insurgents, foreign mercenaries and terrorists,” Sidorov said.

Albright also cited human rights concerns in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Myanmar, also known as Burma, and Serb-controlled Yugoslavia.

But China was the focus of her speech, which was delivered to a standing-room-only crowd at the United Nations' European headquarters. Her audience listened attentively and applauded only once, at the end of the speech.

China has “always fallen well short” of U.N. human rights standards, even though it is one of five permanent members on the U.N. Security Council, Albright said.

In the past year, China's human rights record has “deteriorated markedly,” she said, adding that the U.S. resolution would cite “widespread denials of political, cultural, labor and religious freedom in China.”

Chinese authorities have made “widespread arrests of those seeking to exercise their right to peaceful political expression,” detaining thousands of members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, she said.

Beijing also has limited the religious freedom of Christians, Muslims and Buddhists and has barred Tibetans from exercising their “cultural and linguistic heritage,” she added.

Chinese Ambassador Qiao Zonghuai rejected Albright's accusations as showing “the arrogance of this superpower” and maintained citizens of China enjoy freedom of religion and expression.

Chinese authorities were obliged to restrict Falun Gong because it is “an evil cult” that has claimed the lives of 1,400 followers, he claimed.

“A country like the United States, which has such a poor human rights record, has no right to judge other countries' human rights situation,” Qiao said.

The United States has “gross violations of human rights, notorious racial discrimination, police brutality, torture in prisons, infringement of women's rights,” he said.

Albright urged the commission members to stand up to Chin.

China has beaten back every attempt to cite it since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which hundreds of pro-democracy activists died.

So far other countries, including the 15-nation European Union, have been reluctant to declare their support.

Albright flew 11 hours from India to make the speech, and was leaving Thursday evening for the return flight to rejoin President Clinton's tour of South Asia.