Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=7/24/2001

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-278588

TITLE=POWELL / CHINA TRIAL (L)

BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST

DATELINE=HANOI

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: U-S officials travelling with Secretary of State Colin Powell are reacting with "dismay" to word that Chinese-born scholar Gao Zhan -- a permanent U-S resident -- has been sentenced to ten years imprisonment after being convicted in Beijing of spying for Taiwan. As V-O-A's David Gollust reports from Hanoi, the issue is likely to cast a shadow over Mr. Powell's first visit to China as Secretary on Saturday.

TEXT: Administration officials had privately held out hope that Ms. Gao would get the same treatment as did U-S citizen Li Shaomin, who was ordered expelled from China earlier this month after also being convicted of gathering intelligence for Taiwan.

And when word of her conviction and prison sentence reached members of the Powell party -- as they were heading from Tokyo to Hanoi -- there was deep disappointment.

A senior official who spoke to reporters aboard Mr. Powell's plane said the secretary and his team are "quite dismayed" by the sentence, and concerned by the lack of transparency of her trial and the speed with which it was conducted.

He said the United States had asked to send a representative to the Gao Zhan trial, as it did in the Li Shaomin case, and was only informed at the last minute that the request had been denied.

He said the situation of Gao Zhan -- a researcher at American University in Washington -- will "most certainly" be raised by Mr. Powell in Beijing Saturday, as well as similar cases and the overall trend in China's human rights performance.

At a news conference that concluded his brief stay in Japan, and preceded the Gao Zhan verdict, Secretary Powell had said he was pleased that China had begun to deal with the cases of several academics and others with U-S connections facing prosecution. But he said U-S concerns go beyond individual cases and that he would "not shrink" from his responsibility to make U-S views clear to Chinese leaders:

/// POWELL ACTUALITY ///

I believe in the universality of human rights, and I think it is important for us to make that point to the Chinese that with this universality, there are expectations from the international community that people will be allowed to live in peace and freedom, if your nation wants to be part of an overall international order committed to peace and freedom and democracy and the rights of individuals. We have seen enormous improvements in China over the last 25 or 30 years. And I think they still have a way to go before they would meet the standards that we would consider appropriate.

/// END ACT ///

The conviction of Gao Zhan is certain to add a new element of difficulty to Mr. Powell's Beijing visit Saturday, which he had hoped would put the bilateral relationship on a better footing after the U-S-Chinese spy-plane confrontation in April.

Administration officials had also expressed private hopes that the International Olympic Committee's decision this month to make China host of the 2008 summer games might have an immediate positive impact on China's human rights performance.

Secretary Powell has a bilateral meeting schedule here late Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who is also taking part in the follow-up consultations to the Asean meeting. (Signed)

NEB/DAG/JWH