Annan in China for East Timor, Falungong talks

Annan in China for East Timor, Falungong talks

BEIJING (Reuters): United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in China on Sunday for talks expected to focus on human rights and UN intervention in internal conflicts, as members of the banned Falungong movement pledged to petition the UN chief.

In discussions with Chinese leaders during his four-day visit, Annan would appeal for greater support for UN peacekeeping operations in East Timor, which Beijing has pledged to back, analysts said.

He was also expected to hold wide-ranging discussions on the UN's evolving role as global policeman of internal conflicts -- a role being pushed aggressively by Annan, but which compromises Beijing's policy of non-interference, a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

If China fails to soften its position, it risks being marginalized as one of the five veto-bearing permanent members of the UN Security Council, diplomats said.

The United States bypassed opposition from Russia and China in the Security Council to lead a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia during the Kosovo crisis this year.

"Chinese leaders have got to put their money where their mouth is and put their troops in the field," said one Asian diplomat.

"They're struggling between these two extremes -- being completely isolationist and indicating that they have a presence as a permanent member."

In discussions on human rights, Annan has said he would wade into the sensitive subject of a government crackdown on the banned Falungong spiritual movement.

In Tokyo last week, he said he was "a bit puzzled" by the Chinese government's reaction to Falungong and would raise the issue in Beijing.

China has arrested scores of adherents of Falungong -- which mixes Buddhism, Taoism and calisthenics -- since banning the movement in July and declaring it an "evil cult".

Some Falungong members said they would try to breach tight security to deliver letters and petitions to Annan.

"I want to tell Mr. Annan the true story about Falungong," one man, who identified himself as a Falungong practitioner, told Reuters. "We are under a lot of pressure."

Falungong members said they wanted Annan to urge China to cancel an arrest warrant for the movement's U.S.-based leader Li Hongzhi, to release all practitioners in custody, and to allow them to practice Falungong freely.

Annan warned in September that countries could not assume that national sovereignty would protect them from international intervention to stop flagrant human rights abuses.

The UN's new creed has jarred with Beijing, which faces secessionist movements in the remote Western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, and widespread criticism of its human rights record, analysts said.

Beijing is keen to set ground rules for future UN action to avoid precedents for international intervention in what it regards as its own internal affairs in Tibet and Xinjiang, and most critically in Taiwan.

China has backed the UN operation in East Timor, which was torn by violence after the region voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia, but only on the grounds that the UN was invited in by Indonesia -- the sovereign power.

"China likes to say this thing is okay because it is different, and they'd probably prefer that every other operation that happens takes the same form," said a Western diplomat.

"They are not really conscious that there is a new UN orthodoxy being set in train."

China has offered five civilian police for East Timor. Beijing sent engineers to Cambodia during UN-run elections in 1993. It also sent observers to Kuwait during the Gulf War.