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France, China back to business after rights row (updates with Li-Chirac meeting, more protests)

PARIS: France and China signed a further trade agreement on Thursday in a show of business as usual after a diplomatic clash over human rights that soured a controversial visit by Chinese Premier Li Peng.

Li and President Jacques Chirac attended a hastily added ceremony at which state-owned French aircraft maker Aerospatiale and Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) signed an undertaking to discuss developing a 100-seat airliner for the Chinese domestic market, with South Korea, Singapore other European partners.

Li showed his anger on Wednesday night at France's intention to raise human rights, even in mild terms, by keeping Prime Minister Alain Juppe waiting for 90 minutes and demanding that he omit a passage in a planned dinner toast.

Only after Juppe agreed to cancel the exchange of toasts did the Chinese go ahead with signing contracts totalling 10 billion francs ($2 billion), mostly for 33 European Airbus aircraft.

However a smiling Li Peng was on time for luncheon talks with Chirac on Thursday and officials on both sides tried to put the incident behind them, insisting the visit was going well.

French ministers denied Juppe had given in to pressure, but newspapers and opposition politicians charged he had backed down and allowed Li Peng, branded the "butcher of Tiananmen Square" over the crushing of a 1989 democracy movement, to censor him.

"We gave in to Mr Li's whims," opposition Socialist Party spokesman Francois Hollande said. "He didn't want that paragraph read, so the speech wasn't read."

"Li Peng buys, Juppe shuts up," the tabloid Le Parisien said in a headline. The left-wing daily Liberation proclaimed: "China censors Juppe's speech."

Civil Service Minister Dominique Perben, one of the 100 guests kept waiting by Li, said: "I believe no one gave in."

Foreign Minister Herve de Charette told reporters he had given Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen a list of about 20 political prisoners whose release France sought. A French spokesman said the letter was accepted without comment.

The conservative daily Le Figaro published extracts of Juppe's speech as if he had delivered it, enabling readers to judge just how cautious the offending references were.

The text said France believed that "all durable economic and social development is accompanied by parallel progress in democracy and human rights".

"We are not looking for confrontation on this essential issue but...for a dialogue to promote practically the universal values to which France has always been fundamentally attached," Juppe had planned to say.

On Wednesday, China signed its biggest order so far with the European Airbus consortium to buy 30 short-haul A320 planes and confirmed the purchase of three long-haul A340s.

Chirac's office called Thursday's Aerospatiale-AVIC accord "one of the most important projects between Asia and the West".

But an Aerospatiale spokeswoman was cautious, saying the document was an understanding "to continue negotiations for development of a 100-seater passenger jet", in which the Chinese voiced hope the Europeans would win the deal. Two U.S. aerospace giants, McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing, are also in the running.

Some 2,300 protesters staged a peaceful march towards the Chinese embassy on Wednesday night, waving banners declaring "Freedom for China and Tibet" and "Li Peng, murderer".

Police barred protesters from approaching Beijing's mission to deliver a letter of protest over the alleged imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of political detainees, forced and child labour, executions and repression in Tibet.

Protests continued on Thursday. A member of the anti-nuclear environmental group Greenpeace flew a motorised hang-glider over the Arc de Triomphe monument trailing a banner saying: "China: Stop Testing Now." Police said they arrested him.

Police also detained four activists of the press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders who tried to demonstrate outside the Chinese embassy and five journalists who went to cover the event.