By Martin Banks - 2nd December 2008
A senior MEP has joined the chorus of condemnation of China over the execution of a man accused of spying for Taiwan
Wo Weihan was executed on Friday after being convicted of passing data on national guidance systems to a group linked to Taiwanese intelligence agencies.
Taiwan and China were divided amid civil war in 1949. China claims sovereignty over its neighbour across the Taiwan straits and has threatened to use force to thwart any move towards independence by Taipei.
The Chinese have faced international criticism, the latest of which has come from ALDE group leader Graham Watson, who has just returned from a week-long ALDE delegation trip to Taiwan and Japan.
He said, “I certainly endorse the condemnation of the death penalty in this case.
“Taiwan still has the death penalty and there are 31 people on death row on that country. But the difference between Taiwan and China is that the death sentence in Taiwan is never carried out whereas the number of people executed in China is huge and growing.”
“I actually raised the issue of the death penalty while I was in Taiwan last week because the European parliament is against the death sentence being used anywhere.”
While in Taiwan, Watson met the Taiwan president and the country’s finance and environment ministers to discuss its response to the financial crisis and efforts to tackle climate change.
Watson also criticised China’s decision to cancel this week’s EU-China summit in Lyon.
He said: "The People's Republic of China risks remaining on the wrong side of history. Communist bullying tactics of this kind will not work in Europe.
"The world hoped that the Beijing Olympics and China's growing economic maturity would be accompanied by a growing political maturity. And the growth is clearly slower than we hoped. Thankfully, as my meetings in Taipei have shown, there are strong repositories of democratic openess and tolerance in Asia".
Members of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, meanwhile, have also criticised China’s human rights record at a meeting on Monday.
In particular, the criticism focused on the execution of Weihan, a Taiwanese scientist who was sentenced to deathin May 2007.
French ALDE member Philippe Morillon said that a reference in a trade report being considered by the committee to “the Chinese way of achieving democracy” should be removed in light of the Weihan case.
“This doesn’t mean anything anymore,” said Morillon, who suggested the committee highlight the UN’s moratorium on the death penalty and express regret that China continues to execute spies.
Belgian Socialist Veronique de Keyser said she shared her colleagues’ concern about recent events in China but warned against becoming “too emotional” in reacting to the execution of Weihan.
She said there are several examples of positive movement towards greater democracy in China, including the reexamination of all death sentences by the Chinese Supreme Court.
A parliamentary delegation visiting China last week raised the Weihan case in meetings with Chinese officials but to no avail.
China has dismissed criticism of the Weihan execution, saying he received a fair trial.
Foreign affairs spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement that his trial was just and his rights had been protected.
He said China views the EU’s criticism as a “rude interference in China’s judicial system."
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