THE CHINESE ambassador to Ireland has launched a strong defence of her country's treatment of orphans, denying the existence of "dying rooms" and saying the recent Channel 4 documentary on the subject, Return to the Dying Rooms, was a fabrication.
At a press briefing yesterday, the ambassador, Ms Huijan Fan, "said that the rights of orphans and all children were protected by law. She agreed that conditions in some orphanages could be improved but put the issue in the context of China's 1.2 billion population.
She also showed journalists a film called The Dying Rooms a Patchwork of Lies, which gives the official Chinese government response to the Channel 4 documentary and recent report from Human Rights Watch/Asia. The film disputes much of the content of the Channel 4 film, soon to be shown on RTE.
The dying room" shown by Channel 4 on Tuesday, January 9th, was in fact a storeroom at an institution in Huangshi, the film says. It was used to store empty cots, and the camera crew had spread various items around the room before filming, the Chinese film claims.
The head of the Huangshi institution explained why some children were shown tied to "potty seats" in the Channel 4 film. "These children were handicapped", she said. "They couldn't control themselves. They would make themselves and other children dirty, so they were controlled sometimes for a short time to solve this problem."
The ambassador spoke of the case a young child called "no name who had been a major feature of the Channel 4 documentary. This boy was in fact called Jian Xun, she said. He had died of illness, not ill treatment, after over six years at the Shanghai Welfare Institute, she said.
"The deadly problem with him was that he vomited every time after being fed and grew thinner and thinner. All kind of medical treatment failed to cure him and at last, he died.
"We don't deny that there is the tradition in some areas of China of tying children to beds to prevent them hurting themselves while the parents are doing their jobs."
The Channel 4 film had featured a woman who, it said, was five months pregnant when she was forced to have an injection which killed her baby and she was then sterilised against her will. The Chinese film interviewed a woman it said was the same woman, Ms Xie Lanfeng, and she dismissed the Channel 4 claims as "utter nonsense".
She said that her child was five months old when she met the Channel 4 crew. She now has two children, has never had an abortion and had gone voluntarily to be sterilised after the child was born.
There are 40,000 welfare institutions, including orphanages, in China's rural areas, and 100 orphanages in urban areas, according to a fact sheet distributed at the press briefing yesterday. China, in co operation with the UN, has also set up four "SOS children's villages" catering for 400 orphans.
Some of these institutions are very well run, according to the film others are below standard because of financial difficulties. This should be seen in the context of the fact that China was a developing country in which 70 million people did not have adequate housing and food.
"Abuse of children and abandoning of babies are severely prohibited and any law breakers will be brought to justice," the ambassador said.
Dr Zhang Shuyun, whose testimony was a central part of the Channel 4 film, had invented fabrications to revenge herself on her former employer, Ms Fan claimed. Dr Zhang had been employed by the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute in September 1988 and had resigned in June 1993.
"During this time she was repeatedly criticised by the directorship of the orphanage for her poor work performance. To revenge herself she defamed the director with fabrication but failed."
She had fled China just as the director brought a suit for slander against her. "How can the so called materials provided by such a person be reliable?" the ambassador asked.
Dr Zhang's brother had not been arrested, had not had his house confiscated and was still working, she said. The recent report that he had been arrested was another example of misinformation in the western media", she added.
A Channel 4 spokesman in London said last night that the channel stood over the programme "If we didn't we wouldn't have gone back to do a second one. We are aware of the Chinese view."