THE WORLD FROM BERLIN
'Sarkozy Has Lost All Credibility on Human Rights'
April 23, 2008
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,549172,00.html
The French rush to mend ties with Beijing seems to have worked, with
the Chinese government praising both French President Nicolas Sarkozy
and supermarket chain Carrefour this week. But, German newspapers ask,
at what cost has this come to France's much-vaunted commitment to
human rights?
Carrefour in China came under pressure this week, but the French
government rushed to the rescue.
When Chinese protestors took to the streets this weekend calling for a
boycott of French goods and the supermarket Carrefour in particular,
Paris went into emergency mode to diffuse the situation.
Although criticism of the Chinese crackdown in Tibet had been fiercer
in places like the United Kingdom and Germany, the combination of the
images from the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay -- where a
wheelchair-bound Chinese athlete came under attack by protestors --
and Sarkozy's suggestion he might boycott the Olympic Games opening
ceremony had been enough to stir up fierce anti-French sentiment in
China.
Sarkozy reacted quickly (more...). On Monday, he sent a message of
sympathy to the Chinese athlete involved in the scuffle, Jin Jing, and
this week a parade of French emissaries are landing in China,
including top Sarkozy diplomatic aide Jean-David Levitte and former
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, carrying messages of conciliation
for the Chinese leader****p.
However, Paris City Hall's decision to grant the Tibetan spiritual
leader Dalai Lama honorary citizen****p of the city on Monday risked
undermining these efforts, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry
immediately criticizing the gesture.
On Wednesday an interview with Raffarin appeared in the China Youth
Daily, in which he insisted that this was not official national
policy. "While President Sarkozy makes efforts to improve France-China
relations, the Paris administration is running in the opposite
direction to the French government. This is very bad."
Meanwhile Raffarin told the French daily Le Parisien that this step
was "inop****tune" and that when he meets with Chinese President Hu
Jintao he will assure him of the "continuity" of Franco-Chinese
relations. "The message is clear: France's policy toward China is not
changing."
The issue of whether Sarkozy will boycott the Olympics opening
ceremony is, however, still open. He had previously said that he would
attend if China started up a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Raffarin
told Le Parisien on Wednesday that it was "too early" to make a
decision. He said Sarkozy planned to consult with European Union
partners on whether to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic
Games in August. According to Raffarin, he wants his decision to be
"coherent" with France's presidency of the EU, which commences on July
1.
The Chinese leader****p, meanwhile, seems almost as eager to quell the
anti-French sentiment as Paris. On Tuesday the Foreign Ministry
praised Sarkozy's gesture of sending the message to Jin as a "friendly
move," while an official told China's CCTV news: "We have notice that
the French government and companies recently took some actions that
are helpful to the improvement of bilateral relations."
The beleaguered Carrefour was also allowed some relief this week. The
Chinese government made its first direct comment on the supermarket
chain on Tuesday, commending the way it did business and thanking it
for sup****ting the Beijing Olympics. Suddenly on Wednesday, Chinese
newspapers were pointing out that 95 percent of the products sold in
the supermarket chain in China were made domestically and that it
employed 40,000 Chinese people. Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that while the demonstrations against
Carrefour had been "encouraging and touching ... we do not agree with
some people's radical actions."
The zeal with which France has rushed to mend relations with China has
raised a few eyebrows. German newspapers on Wednesday express some
distaste at the way Sarkozy is suddenly sucking up to China.
The left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes:
"A few calls for a boycott of a French supermarket in China were
enough to cause President Nicolas Sarkozy's commitment to human rights
to falter badly. ... Naturally it's easy to talk about freedom when
there are no im****tant economic interests at stake. But if it is about
civil rights in the giant market that is China, then it is
considerably more difficult to stick to big principles."
"The written apology (to athlete Jin Jing) was meant to be more than
just symbolic. Sarkozy's emissaries are to reassure the rulers in
Beijing of how much the friend****p with China means to France and that
one must not take the protests against the suppression of human rights
and the autonomy of Tibet too seriously."
"By now keeping silent on human rights out of fear of the economic
consequences, Sarkozy has lost all credibility. When it took on the
task of organizing the Olympic Games, China knew it was running the
risk of exposing its handling of dissidents and minorities to
international criticism. The fact that the very country that considers
itself to be the cradle of human rights has been the first to cave in
is, in France itself, unthinkable and a scandal. Sarkozy has exposed
himself to the criticism that he talked big about human rights at
first but is now chickening out."
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:
"After the Olympic torch was attacked in Paris because of Tibet,
Beijing made its wrath felt in Paris and staged 'spontaneous'
demonstrations in several cities. Sarkozy has shown that he is
prepared to grovel, by immediately sending three top-ranking
emissaries to meekly renew France's 'deep ties' with China."
"In reality Sarkozy has maneuvered himself into a position of
weakness, where it is now possible to blackmail him. But in fact it is
China that should be easy to blackmail, since it ex****ts far more to
France than France ex****ts to China. Beijing has more to fear from
'spontaneous' demonstrations than Paris. It could end up losing
control of them, just like happened during the anti-Japanese protests
in 2005. And for the Olympic hosts, every bad image is a disaster.
After all, the ice-cold strategists in Beijing would only hurt
themselves if they cancelled contracts."
"Sarkozy's obsequiousness would only be an issue in Paris if it
weren't for the fact that the man without principles is to become the
president of the EU on July 1 and, thus, during the Olympic Games.
Money matters more than the Olympic honor. What an abysmal overture to
France's leader****p of Europe."
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung addresses the issue of China and
the West's differing expectations for the Olympics.
"China's leader****p and its patriots had long been dreaming of a great
Summer Olympics. Now they think the West begrudges them their Olympic
Games. Europeans and the Americans are jealous of China's rise, they
believe. Under the constant barrage of propaganda the Chinese people
feel that the West is injuring their national pride."
"In the West there was a dream that the Olympic Games could act as a
Trojan horse that would help to introduce democracy to China. This
dream had ended though. The images from Lhasa have turned China into a
caricature of evil, that does not at all match the image of the cool
boom nation."
"The Europeans and in particular the Germans should now ask themselves
self-critically why their images of China are always swinging between
two extremes. Either they admire the dynamism of the 'new China,' with
its Formula 1 racing in Shanghai and its glittering skylines, or they
suc***b to a hysterical criticism of China, an almost latent fear of
the country. The truth, as is so often the case, lies somewhere in
between."
"Neither irrational fear of this land of billions of people, nor a
cowardly groveling to its leader****p is suitable. Injustice is still
injustice, no matter how big or economically successful a country is."
"The Chinese government is now caught in its own trap. They had sold
the Chinese people a new nationalism as a replacement ideology for the
discredited Marxism-Leninism. And that is why Chinese leaders believe
that if they pursue a dialogue with the Dalai Lama or their Western
critics, they will lose the sup****t of their own people. ... It is
only with honesty that the gap between China and the rest of the world
can be bridged. This is a part of modern reality that Beijing still
has to learn."
-- Siobhán Dowling, 1:15 a.m. CET
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