Trade Matters
Le Monde of
Paris devoted its front-page lead and its editorial Friday to the continuing
tensions between the United States and Europe in the run-up to the World Trade
Organization conference in Seattle at the end of November. It dwelt on their
different attitudes to the WTO--America wanting it to lift more trade barriers,
Europe wanting it to act as the arbiter of trade disputes--and noted that last
Wednesday's meeting at the White House between President Clinton and Romano
Prodi, the president of the European Commission, failed to resolve all their
differences. "The discussions will therefore continue to prevent the Seattle
conference being devoid of all content," it said. In its editorial, Le
Monde defended the WTO against its French critics, saying it is much better
to negotiate with the United States in a multilateral framework than to let the
United States exercise its power in bilateral deals with other countries.
In a
long piece for the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong Friday, the
paper's Beijing correspondent wrote that early Chinese entry into the WTO was
now impossible and that China would be shut out of the Seattle negotiations.
President Jiang Zemin, now touring Europe, derailed the plan of Prime Minister
Zhu Rongji to cut China's bureaucracy in half and privatize its state-owned
enterprises within three years, the article said. Instead, Jiang issued
proclamations keeping foreign investors out of China's Internet and
telecommunications industries. He also failed to soften his positions on
Taiwan, Tibet, and human rights, which might have been one way of wooing
Western governments.
"Instead, the opposite happened. In the past few days, harsh sentences were
handed out in Hangzhou to founder members of China's Democratic Party and there
were further arrests of dissidents and Falun Gong supporters," the SCMP
said. "In the past, Mr Jiang always timed the release of prominent political
prisoners to smooth relations and give his hosts some face so they could claim
credit for improving China's record. This time China was confident that such
gestures, which border on the insulting, were not necessary for the banquets at
Buckingham Palace and the Elysee presidential palace. The praise and support Mr
Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave over the past three years
has not been withdrawn."
The
SCMP also reported Friday that Michael Klosson, the new U.S.
consul-general in Hong Kong, was rebuked by China for a speech this week in
which he attacked a Chinese proposal to establish a press council in Hong Kong
as a threat to media freedom and criticized Beijing's decision to prevent the
pope visiting the territory. China called the speech meddlesome and
irresponsible. The paper noted that Washington's proposed new ambassador to
China, Adm. Joseph Prueher, had delighted Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., during a
hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Helms is
chairman, by stating that human rights will be at the heart of his mission
there.
Already criticized for its tough crackdown on protestors during President
Jiang's recent visit to France, the French government came under renewed attack
Friday for overprotecting President Mohammed Khatami of Iran against critics of
his regime. Libération of Paris said that the police deployment bore no
relation to the size of the threat to Khatami by mujahadeen exiles and "could
have given the impression that certain quarters of Paris were under siege."
Le Monde reported special indignation by the Green Party, one of whose
members of parliament accused President Jacques Chirac of "making our country a
prostitute" by offering Jiang his bed. It was "a black week for the country of
the rights of man," the parliamentarian said. In an interview with Le Figaro , Henri Leclerc,
president of the Human Rights League, said it was a sad time for French
democracy and that arresting Iran's opponents was "no way of persuading Iranian
leaders to respect the rights of man."
In
Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich reported that after World War
II, hundreds of German war criminals had not been put on trial in Italy because
of Italian fears that such actions would sour its postwar relationship with
Germany. Thousands of Italian civilians were killed during the German
occupation of Italy from 1943 to 1945, and an Anglo-American commission of
inquiry passed on the names of many of the alleged perpetrators to the Italian
authorities. But "after Germany joined NATO in 1955, the Christian Democrat
government in Rome didn't want to ruin its relationship with its new partner by
holding embarrassing trials," the paper said.
The
Times of
India reported Friday that the Oct. 12 military coup in Pakistan had
been predicted eight days earlier on an Indian Web site. The message, posted by
an anonymous contributor, said: "There is going to be a coup in Pakistan very
soon democratic rule will be over for good.chiina and USA know." Soon
afterward, mediaibc.com, a site for "media professionals," was hacked into and
put out of commission for some time, the paper said.
Opinions varied on Wednesday's Al Gore-Bill Bradley debate. The Daily Telegraph of
London said Bradley won; Corriere della Sera of Milan said Gore won; La Repubblica of Rome said
boredom won.
