Human-rights issues overshadow Merkel trip to China

Jan 31, 2012, 15:38 GMT

Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is due in Beijing on Thursday morning for two days of talks, is expected to woo China into investing some of its vast foreign-exchange reserves in the EU bailout fund for the debt-stricken eurozone.

She is to lead a high-powered delegation of industrialists and parliamentarians, with economic issues squarely in focus. But human-rights questions may overshadow the visit, Merkel's fifth as chancellor.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is to receive her Thursday with a military welcome, and she will also meet President Hu Jintao. Merkel is booked to address the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) on economic and monetary policy the same day.

At her Beijing political talks, she is expected to ask China not to step up Iranian oil imports, since this would undermine the EU oil embargo against Iran. She is also to urge backing for international action on North Korea and to end the violence in Syria.

Her key message will be an appeal for China to invest in both Germany and in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the main eurozone bailout agency, a senior aide said.

The EFSF helps indebted governments that have been punished with high risk premiums by markets.

'Chinese investment is welcome,' said the aide in Berlin on Tuesday. Merkel will make the case to Chinese bankers and political leaders that the eurozone is a safe haven for their billions.

But Merkel will also raise human rights questions in Beijing, the aide said.

Recently there has been a flare-up of tension in south-western China and Tibet among Tibetans. Chinese security forces stand accused of opening fire on the Tibetans. Kai Mueller of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) urged Merkel to admonish China.

China has also been criticized in the West for its treatment of dissidents.

A veteran dissident, Zhu Yufu, went on trial Tuesday in the eastern city of Hangzhou on subversion charges linked to a poem and other articles he published online, his lawyer said.

Merkel must voice her concern at every meeting about the worsening in human rights, Sharon Hom of Human Rights in China (HRiC) said.

On Friday in Guangzhou, Merkel is to address a Sino-German business meeting and visit the Chinese branch of Herrenknecht, a German company said to be the world's biggest maker of robotic tunnel-drilling machines.

Technology companies like Herrenknecht are a key to German efforts to keep trade with China on even terms. German exports to China last year were valued at 53.6 billion euros (70.5 billion dollars). But German imports from China were greater in value: 76.5 billion euros.

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