BEIJING has gone on the offensive to rebut world criticism of its human rights records and of its plans to repeal civil liberties legislation recently introduced in Hong Kong by the outgoing British administration.
The Chinese counterattack coincides with the publication yesterday of the US State Department's annual report on human rights in China, which says that by the end of 1996 there were no active dissidents left who had not been jailed or exiled.
The minuscule community of Chinese dissidents has been silenced in recent months, with several jailed for crimes ranging from hooliganism to plotting to subvert the state. Others have been sentenced to up to three years of re education through labour.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry chose yesterday to announce that the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, will visit China in late February in her first major venture abroad since being sworn in last week. The timing of the announcement underlined the fact that US engagement with China is proceeding apace, however harsh the US criticisms of its human rights record might be.
"China places great importance on this visit," the foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Shen Guofang, told a news briefing. He said Ms Albright would hold talks on a wide range of issues.
Relations between the two countries are warming rapidly, and the US Vice President, Mr Al Gore, is expected to visit Beijing in late March.
Critics of Washington's engagement policy claim that the US has lost its leverage on China on human rights by not linking the fate of dissidents with progress in Sino US relations. Of much more importance to Beijing than the State Department report is whether Washington will this year sponsor a resolution condemning China at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
A US delegation led by Ms Sandra Kristoff of the National Security Council yesterday ended a two day visit to Beijing during which it sought to persuade China to improve its record on human rights before the US made up its mind what to do.
Washington "has told the Chinese many times that unless there is progress on human rights issues of international concern, the US is prepared to co sponsor a resolution on China at the UN human rights commission", a US embassy spokesman said.
China has angrily opposed the annual UN resolution, saying it constitutes interference in its internal affairs, and has succeeded in quashing it every year since 1991. This year it meets in March.
Mr Shen said that China was ready to engage in dialogue with any country in the world but it was unacceptable for countries to interfere in China's internal affairs.
The vice president of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, said after meeting Ms Albright in Washington this week that the Chinese would enjoy greater freedoms if China was allowed to take part in world affairs rather than be forced into isolation.
Beijing this week also hit back at criticisms of its plan to scrap recently introduced civil liberties in Hong Kong when it is reunited with the territory on July 1st.
Chinese officials called a rare press conference on Wednesday to emphasise that freedom must have its limits in Hong Kong and that reforms introduced by the governor, Mr Chris Patten, had weakened the powers of the police.
They cited the storming last year of the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong over the disputed Diaoyu Islands as one example of the problems resulting from amendments to public order ordinances.
"There is no such thing as absolute rights and freedoms. There are limits. Other people's rights and reputations, national security, public order and hygiene should also be respected," said China's Hong Kong and Macau Office spokesman, Mr Zhao Bingxin.
"The original ordinances empower the government to manage demonstrations, control traffic conditions and assure Hong Kong people of their life style. Is that wrong?"
No unauthorised demonstrations of any kind are allowed in China, and applications for permission to hold public protests are routinely refused by the communist government to maintain stability. Beijing says its priority is to ensure the right of its 1.2 billion people to food and clothing.
Mr Zhao said that in the 1980s the British had insisted that Hong Kong's then existing laws were in line with international human rights conventions.
The Xinhua news agency said the Hong Kong Bill of Rights which China intends to scrap was a British ploy to substantially change the territory's law without China's consent. It claimed that a Societies Ordinance it also plans to remove was inconsistent with Article 23 of the Basic Law - China's new constitution for Hong Kong - which bans local groups from having links with foreign political groups.
The official China Daily yesterday published a scathing attack on. the US media, accusing the New York Times of "deep rooted prejudice and hostility towards China" in its coverage of Hong Kong.
It said that some articles in the US press accused China of "robbing Hong Kong people of their freedoms". But it was Britain that had violated agreements with China not to introduce new laws before the handover.
Ignoring the established practice of discussion and China's repeated objections, British Hong Kong authorities, Governor Chris Patten in particular, arbitrarily made some major changes to Hong Kong's original laws," it said.
To safeguard Hong Kong's "stability and development" a legal panel appointed by Beijing had recommended that "some ordinances concocted by Hong Kong British authorities - would not be adopted."
China last week also harshly criticised a report of the US based Human Rights Watch, saying some political prisoners whom the group championed were convicted rapists and swindlers, and that it "contains malicious and slanderous attacks against China's human rights situation and is frivolous and unjust".
The report "terms those criminals who have been convicted of crimes such as hooliganism, swindling, bribery and embezzlement and endangering the state security as `dissidents' and `political prisoners'," Xinhua said.