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.