Max Baucus: “I rise, with some reservations, in support of the resolution offered by Senator Wellstone and Senator Mack. I have been…”

“I rise, with some reservations, in support of the resolution offered by Senator Wellstone and Senator Mack. I have been visiting, debating and studying China for some years. And it is quite clear that human rights conditions in China can and should be far better. China admits to holding about 3,000 people in prison for ``counter-revolutionary'' offenses. We don't know the exact figure, but Amnesty International's estimate is similar. And political repression, over the past four or five years, has in some ways become more rather than less severe for the nation's most prominent dissidents. Treatment of religious leaders and labor organizers may be even worse. And repression seems to be at its harshest in some minority areas. Independent reports show that rates of imprisonment are higher in Tibet and Xinjiang, and violent response by the authorities is more common. Having visited Lhasa myself, albeit on a highly controlled visit, my personal impression backs up these reports of very severe policies. Those things are real. And the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva is the appropriate place for us, for China, and for the other nations of the world to discuss them. But we must also recognize something very important. That is, most long-term human rights trends in China are good. The number of people tried for political offenses is down from 350 a year in the mid-1980s to about 200 a year now.”