WASHINGTON, Jan 11: The two-day China-US talks on human rights opened with the American warning that China was in for a condemnation for its poor record issued on Monday in the background.Harold Koh, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, met with Chinese assistant foreign minister Wang Guangya at the State Department for a get-together that marked the resumption of a human rights dialogue after a four-year hiatus.US concerns about human rights in China are `deep and considerable', State Department spokesman James Rubin said, citing a recent wave of arrests, trials and the sentencing of a number of pro-democracy activists.While the US administration has not decided whether to press for a condemnation of China at the annual UN human rights conference in Geneva in March, the talks will help officials here carve out a position, said Rubin.``The responses we receive from China to our specific cases of concern, and how they respond to what happens at this meeting, will play a role in anydetermination that we make,'' he said.Last year, the United States and the European Union decided not to sponsor a resolution condemning China at the UN forum. ``That decision did not mean that we regarded China's record as satisfactory. We clearly do not,'' said Rubin.``What we will do in Geneva this year remains to be determined and will depend in part on conditions in China when the commission begins,'' he said, suggesting that Beijing still had time to make some gesture.Beijing has intensified its crackdown on dissent with police threats and the detention of US-based activist Zhou Yongjun, according to dissident sources.China's heavy-handed crackdown on a fledgling opposition party led to three stiff sentences for leading activists Wang Youcai, Xu Wenli and Qin Yongmin in late December.Washington criticised last month's sentencing of dissidents Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin and Wang Youcai, all linked to the fledgling China Democracy Party (CDP), as well as labour activist Zhang Shanguang.Thoseincidents were expected to be raised during the talks.US officials are looking forward to a ``candid exchange'' in which differences over human rights can be addressed ``clearly and frankly'' said Rubin.China agreed to resume the human rights dialogue, put on hold during a chill in relations in 1995 over Taiwan, as a result of an exchange of summits between Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin last year.But the administration has been under pressure from Republicans in Congress to toughen its approach to Beijing on human rights.
