Merkel Stresses Human and Media Rights with China's Wen

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met on Thursday for the second time in four months. The German leader said she again raised human rights issues with the Chinese leader and urged Beijing to respect the freedom of the press.

"In our discussions, we touched on human rights issues and I made it clear that these rights are inalienable and should be respected everywhere," Merkel told reporters at a press conference with Wen.

She said she had singled out the freedom of the press and stressed that journalists should be allowed to carry out their work during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Merkel alluded to new media rules announced on Sunday that require foreign media to seek approval to distribute news, pictures and graphics within China.

"I said clearly that on this occasion too, the freedom of the press will play an important role and that we should continue to discuss the matter," Merkel said.

Her remarks follow the recent jailing of two journalists in what observers describe as a clampdown on the media ahead of the games and the 17th Communist Party Congress next year. The Chinese government recently sentenced New York Times researcher Zhao Yan to three years in prison for fraud and Singapore Straits Times correspondent Ching Cheong to five years for allegedly spying for Taiwan.

Intellectual property rights

Another area that has rankled many Western politicians and business leaders is intellectual property rights (IPR) and the piracy of films and CDs. German and Chinese officials took limited action on Thursday by signing an IPR accord.

Under the agreement, German experts will help train Chinese patent officials and a series of exchanges are to be arranged for personnel from both countries.

"This will help ensure that there is more reliability for those who in invest in China," said Merkel at the press conference.

For his part, Wen hailed the growth of German-Chinese economic ties and said he expected the overall trade volume between both nations to reach $80 billion dollars (63 billion euros), after climbing to 70 billion dollars last year.

Arms embargo

Merkel and Wen also discussed the topic of the EU's arms embargo imposed against China in 1989 after the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, had together with France led calls in 2004 to lift the embargo but this was strongly opposed by both the US and Japan, which say a resumption of European weapons sales to Beijing will worsen tensions between China and Taiwan.

Merkel has said she will not go down Schröder's path. With Germany holding the EU presidency during the first half of 2007, she said "the arms embargo theme is currently not on the agenda."

Lifting the embargo was a question of "mutual respect and equality" said Wen, adding that he hoped EU countries would have "enough vision and foresight" to tackle the issue.