12th EU-China Summit: time for new EU leadership to forge a new and co-ordinated policy on Tibet

 

 

This year’s second EU-China Summit takes place in Beijing on Monday. Free Tibet believes that the EU is failing to exploit its status as China’s largest trading partner to pressure China on human rights and Tibet and that a new, concerted EU position on Tibet is urgently required from EU member states.

The recent appointment of both a President and Foreign Policy chief for the EU creates a timely opportunity for a radical re-think within the EU on its strategy for engaging China on human rights and Tibet. Free Tibet considers that such a strategy should incorporate a new, EU-wide position on Tibet which more accurately reflects the importance of Tibet within overall EU-China relations. A new strategy should also seek to apply meaningful, concerted and public pressure from the EU on China to resume substantive negotiations, without pre-conditions, with Tibetan representatives aimed at securing a lasting settlement in Tibet.

 

Until now the EU has shown reluctance to take a strong, public and concerted position on China’s worsening human rights violations in Tibet. Following the last summit in May the EU and China issued a detailed and lengthy joint communiqué which inexplicably failed to even mention human rights. And in advance of next Monday’s summit, the EU and China staged a low-profile and little-noticed dialogue on human rights on November 20.

 

The sidelining at successive summits of human rights issues to sessions conducted by relatively junior officials behind closed doors has reduced bilateral discussions on human rights to little more than a closed talking shop. And in Tibet no positive outcomes in terms of improvements in the human rights situation have resulted from EU-China discussions on human rights. This view has been endorsed by the European Parliament which has observed that, despite deepening commercial relations between the EU and China, there has been no improvement in human rights.

 

Practical steps which could be taken by the EU to signal a new position on Tibet include:

 

• Streamlining and co-ordinating the respective positions of EU member states to form a clear and unified policy on Tibet.
• Appointment of an EU Special Representative for Tibet responsible for co-ordinating national policies on Tibet.
• Regular and concerted promotion of the resumption of substantive dialogue, without pre-conditions, between China and representatives of the Tibetan people.

 

 

Commenting on the urgent need for the EU to adopt a new and more cohesive position on Tibet, Director of Free Tibet, Stephanie Brigden, said:

 

 

“For too long the EU has allowed China to pursue bullying tactics of divide and rule, threatening to pick off individual EU member states with drastic reprisals if they dared to speak out against China’s human rights atrocities inside Tibet. It is time for the EU to recognise that its growing position of strength confers on it an increased obligation to act more concertedly in speak out against China’s human rights abuses and in promoting a just and lasting settlement in Tibet. After all, China needs the EU just as much as the EU needs China.”

 

 

For further information:

 

Matt Whitticase, External Communications: t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7515 788456 or email: matt@freetibet.org

 

Stephanie Brigden, Director: t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7530 528264 or email stephanie@freetibet.org