German officials stress equality, mutual respect in China-German human rights dialogue

German parliamentary and government officials on Wednesday in Berlin stressed equality and mutual respect in the human rights dialogue between China and Germany.

The principle of equality and mutual respect is "self-evident and shall be the precondition of every meeting and dialogue," said Herta Daubler-Gmelin, a German Federal Parliament member when attending a two-day China-German Symposium on Human Rights scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday with "Human Rights and Civic Society" as the topic.

"In the dialogue, China and Germany are not supposed to tell each other what they have to do. But as friends, you will listen to what the other is telling you and take what is useful to you," she said, noting that "only by knowing one another can you cooperate in an appropriate way in the future,"

The annual symposium, attracting nearly 40 parliamentarians, governmental officials and scholars from both countries, was the sixth of its kind since 1999.

Daubler-Gmelin, former Federal Minister of Justice who attended all the previous five symposiums, said "each round of the dialogue and exchange is better than the previous one".

"The German-Chinese human rights dialogue is very, very important to Germany," said Josef Brink, head of the international relations division of the Federal Ministry of Justice, on Tuesday.

"The more we understand each other, the more benefits we can gain," said Brink.

A nine-member Chinese delegation headed by Liu Jingqin, former vice minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of China, attended the symposium.

Initiated and co-hosted by three non-governmental organizations, the symposium became a government-backed project after China and Germany inked an agreement in 2001 on exchange and cooperation in the legal field.

Berlin and Beijing have also been holding a "rule of law dialogue" regularly in recent years which often involves human rights topics.

China has repeatedly said that it supports dialogue and strongly opposes confrontation in the human rights field.

Last year, China engaged in human rights dialogues, consultations and exchanges with a dozen countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.

But when the United States made a failed attempt to have an anti-China motion adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva earlier this year, China furiously criticized the US move as "using human rights as a pretext to create confrontation" and suspended its human rights dialogue with Washington.

German officials at the symposium stressed their preference for dialogue.