Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu Tuesday poured scorn on a
Geneva-based rights group's report that said 1.5 million Beijing
residents would be displaced due to the 2008 Olympic Games.
Jiang specified that all residents that had been relocated due
to Olympic-related constructed had received full support in
changing residence including compensation in cash and had never
been forced to move outside the city.
"The report is simply groundless," Jiang said.
Nine major venues are being built for the Beijing Olympic Games
involving the resettlement of 6,037 households since 2002, Jiang
said.
Also on Tuesday Beijing reiterated its position towards the US
missile defense system in Northeast Asia, calling on all relevant
parties to act with discretion. China sees a missile defense system
as impacting on global strategic stability and as threatening to
spark new proliferation efforts. Jiang added that such a move was
not helpful towards fostering trust between major powers.
Jiang's remarks came after a weekend conference on Asian
security held in Singapore, at which the US and Japan discussed
collaboration on a joint missile defense system, said to be
protection against North Korea missile attacks.
Jiang said the US decision to set up a missile defense system in
Eastern Europe had also caused concern and alarm across from the
international community, adding that China viewed both the missile
systems in the same light.
In another development, China strongly criticized a statement by
a US official linking the Beijing Olympic Games to the 1989
Tiananmen incident.
"The Olympic Games are a great world event, and we are firmly
against this interference in China's internal affairs in the name
of the Games," said Jiang.
US State Department spokesman Tom Casey recently said in a
statement that China would face greater scrutiny as the 2008
Olympics rolled around, before he criticized China's actions during
the Tiananmen incident in 1989.
Jiang said China had put behind it the political turmoil at the
end of the 1980s and that over the past two decades, the country
had enjoyed improved social stability and economic growth. Progress
has also been made in democracy and legal systems, added Jiang,
saying that the Chinese people enjoy freedom and various human
rights.
"The Chinese government and people will unswervingly march
forward along the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics,"
Jiang said.
Motivated by its own political aims, the United States has been
groundlessly criticizing and attacking China year after year,
severely harming international relations and flouting China's
internal affairs.
"China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes this,"
she said, adding "we demand the United States halt these
wrongdoings and pay more attention to its own internal and
international serious infringements on human rights.”
Turning to upcoming state visits, Jiang announced that at the
invitation of Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, Ramdien Sardjoe, vice-president
of Surinam, would soon pay an official visit to China.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2007)
