As the date for the UN Human Rights Commission to convene its annual meeting in Geneva draws near, some US congressmen, along with so-called human rights campaigners, are turning up the heat to press the administration to criticize China at the meeting.

Senator Paul Wellstone, a "champion" of human rights in the US Congress, has introduced a bipartisan Senate resolution calling on the government to take a stand against human rights in China.

Such an irresponsible act is absolutely an intervention in a sovereign country's internal affairs. It is also a malicious vilification of the actual human rights situation in China.

It is widely known that human rights, a noble cause in essence, have long been used by some Westerners as an excuse to attack China and many other developing countries.

To serve their own political motives, some US-led Western countries take every opportunity to provoke confrontations at the UN commission, which is supposed to shoulder the responsibility of protecting and promoting human rights in the world at large.

For nine years since 1990, they have been foiled in their attempts to get an anti-China resolution accepted at the UN commission's conference. But it seems that those Westerners with their deep-rooted biases against China have yet to learn that their efforts are destined to fail.

China has long held that the only way to settle differences among nations on human rights issues is to conduct dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

As the world's most populous country, China has successfully solved the problem of providing food and clothing for its people. This is a great contribution to the promotion of people's right to live a secure life, the basic human right that China thinks should come before all others.

Though much is still left to be done, it is fair to say that the Chinese people are enjoying a higher level of human rights today than they have ever enjoyed in the past.

It is our sincere hope that the US Government will take a just and unbiased approach in dealing with the human rights issue so as to contribute to the enhancement of bilateral ties.

(China Daily 02/19/2001)