Beijing - German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in China
on Thursday for talks that were expected to focus on the global
financial crisis.
Merkel was scheduled to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao later in
the day before the two leaders join some 40 other heads of state at
the biannual Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on Friday and Saturday.
German officials said the fact that Merkel was one of the few
foreign leaders making a formal state visit to China for the ASEM
summit showed the importance of ties between the two nations.
She is scheduled to meet President Hu Jintao on Friday.
Two rights groups appealed to Merkel to raise the situation of
China's Tibetan and Uighur minorities during her meetings in Beijing.
Merkel should press China for 'tangible results from the dialogue
between the Dalai Lama's representatives and Chinese officials,' Kate
Saunders, communications director of the International Campaign for
Tibet, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Saunders said the ASEM summit was taking place 'at a time of
severe repression against peaceful dissent in Tibet,' following
anti-Chinese protests earlier this year by Tibetans supporting the
Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader.
A European-based group representing China's mainly Muslim Uighur
minority also urged Merkel to press China to allow international
investigation of claims that Uighurs were involved in several plots
to attack the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
'We hope that Merkel can ask, through diplomatic channels, for an
international investigation of their claims,' Dilxat Raxit of the
World Uighur Congress told dpa by telephone from Munich.
'They're looking for an excuse to control the Uighur people,'
Raxit said of China's terrorism claims, which included the listing of
eight 'most wanted' suspects this week.
'Nobody knows these people, we have have never heard of these
eight people,' he said.
German officials said Merkel planned to raise human rights issues
with Chinese leaders, including China's treatment of ethnic
minorities.
The ASEM summit is also expected to be dominated by talks on the
financial crisis, with climate change as the other major topic for
the 27 European and 16 Asian nations.
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