Zemin France rebuffs democracy as a

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Subject: Zemin France rebuffs democracy as absolute right

Tuesday October 26 12:11 AM ET 

 China's Jiang Rejects Rights
 Criticisms

                     By Tom Heneghan

                     PARIS (Reuters) - Chinese President
                     Jiang Zemin, on a state visit to
                     France, Monday rejected criticism of
                     China's human rights record and said
                     he was not sure what protesters he
 encountered on his foreign visits really wanted.

 But he spoke at length with his host, French President Jacques
 Chirac, about Tibet and whether Beijing could open talks with its
 exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, French officials said
 without indicating what Jiang said.

 The French also presented the Chinese delegation with a list of
 imprisoned dissidents and religious leaders Paris was concerned
 about, the officials said.

 Asked about protests during his visit to Britain and France, Jiang
 said: ``I don't know their concerns exactly. In many countries I
 have visited, I have encountered this phenomenon.''

 Among demands he heard was one for Tibetan independence,
 ''but I think Mr. Chirac would not share this point of view,'' he
 said, stressing that he saw democracy not as an absolute but as a
 relative concept that had to be adapted to each country.

 Chirac gingerly brought up the human rights issue again during a
 speech at a state banquet at the Elysee presidential palace when
 he said a ``state of law was emerging which blended your
 national traditions and universal principles whose vocation it is to
 be applied everywhere throughout the world.''

 ``We are attached to the continuation of this process. That is
 why we have engaged in a constructive dialogue about human
 rights...,'' he said.

 One protester earlier tried to run toward Jiang's car but was
 tackled by police before he reached a barrier separating him
 from the road and two people threw leaflets down from a
 building as the Chinese leader passed by.

 Jiang Says Criticism Unfounded

 The Chinese leader noted at his news conference that the
 European Union had recently criticised Beijing in its annual
 report on human rights. ``For us, this is unfounded. It is
 interference with domestic affairs,'' he said.

 ``I told President Chirac that our countries differed in geography
 and level of development, so it is completely normal that there is
 a divergence on the issue of human rights.''

 Chirac noted strong agreement between France and China on
 key political issues, especially the need for an orderly multi-
 polar world, but divergences on human rights.

 ``We talked about it for a very long time, without aggressiveness
 of course -- that would be useless -- but with conviction,'' he
 said.

 The French leader said China's role as a major power in the
 future would push it increasingly toward more democracy.

 ``I am convinced that, in view of the political and technological
 evolution of humanity, a major power will by necessity be
 democratic,'' he said.

 About a dozen people from Amnesty International and the press
 freedom group Reporters sans Frontieres (RsF) plastered the
 facade of Air China's Paris office with posters slamming Beijing's
 human rights abuses and muzzling of the press.

 ``Six years of power - 48 journalists in prison'' read one banner
 the protesters held up. Jiang became president in 1993.

 Some 30 protesters were detained by police for a few hours,
 including RSF head Robert Menard, the head of the
 France-Tibet association Marcelle Roux and a dozen members
 of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

 About 500 (1000 Liberation newspaper sic) people had protested in Paris
Sunday, waving
 Tibetan flags and denouncing Jiang as a dictator. As in Britain
 last week, human rights activists and Tibetan exiles complained
 that the police kept them far from the Chinese leader.

 Jiang addressed French business leaders, urging them to invest in
 China -- he mentioned airports, underground railways, highways,
 high technologies, agro-industries, urban planning and
 environmental protection.