Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya has warned the United States of a "serious setback" in bilateral human rights talks if the US introduces an anti-China resolution to a UN human rights meeting in March, "China Daily" reported on January 31.

"Sino-US human rights dialogues will suffer a serious setback if the United States introduces an anti-China resolution to the United Nations Commission in March," the paper quoted Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya as saying.

Wang said that a dialogue on human rights between China and the US will not be possible if no concrete steps are taken by the U.S. to eliminate the adverse effects of the anti-China resolution.

"Differences between developed and developing countries over human rights should not become an obstacle to the development of their relations, nor a means to interfere in other's internal affairs," Wang said, who is also chief of the Chinese delegation for Sino-US human rights talks.

"Confrontation will not solve any problems, and no one should venture to be the teacher of others," he said.

On January 11, the United States Department of State announced that it would sponsor an anti-China resolution at the 56th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, saying that China's human rights record had "continued to deteriorate."

Wang refuted the US charges, pointing out that the Chinese government has made great efforts in promoting and protecting human rights. "The development of democracy and the legal system has also seen active progress, and the Chinese people have enjoyed ever better social, economic and cultural rights," he said.

"And China now has the best human rights situation in its history," Wang added.

Similar attempts to censure China have failed to get enough votes eight times since 1990, the year of the 46th session of the 53-member UN Commission.

Nevertheless, the United States again this year has raised "concerns" about a range of issues, including the country's half-year-old ban of the Falun Gong cult and China's treatment of ethnic minorities.

Wang said this move shows that some people in the United States "cling obstinately to the Cold War mentality and are trying to putpolitical pressure on China."

He said these people are using human rights as an excuse to undermine China's political stability and development.

"That such a move is being launched, alongside the US partisan campaigns for the Presidential Election, indicates, to a great extent, that it is catering to the wish of the anti-China force in the US and fishing for political capital," he said.

"Scapegoating China's human rights is without justification and doomed to failure," he said.

Over the past year, the United States and other Western countries have alleged that the Chinese government has intensified its crackdown on "political dissent", for example by suppressing the Falun Gong.

"But to tolerate such a cult means trampling the basic human rights of citizens," he said.

If the US government can use military force to suppress the Branch Davidian cult, how does the United States have the qualification to make irresponsible comments on China's ban on Falun Gong by law, he said.

Wang stressed that only a very few Falun Gong activists who have been proven by court to have broken the law have been punished, adding that the United States itself has not scored well in its human rights accounts among international circles.

Only two countries in the world did not join the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the United States was one, the Chinesevice-foreign minister said, adding that the US congress also took 15 years to approve the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Twenty-three years have passed since the US signing of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which promotes rights related to working, living and education conditions. But the US congress has yet to make the international covenant legally binding in the United States.

The US anti-China resolution also makes allegations concerning China's Tibet Autonomous Region. Wang said that the allegations are groundless.

Forty years ago, a very few top-ranking lamas and aristocrats in Tibet controlled the lives of more than 95 percent of everyday Tibetans, according to Wang. Today, Tibetans and members of other ethnic groups, many of whom are sons and daughters of former serfsand poverty-stricken farmers, manage the affairs of the autonomous region. They account for 74.9 percent of the local government officials.

In addition, forty years ago, no Tibetan woman was allowed in local government. But today, Tibetan men and women are equal. At present, Tibetan women are 32.8 percent of the region's leaders, and Tibetans' freedom of religion is protected by law, he said, adding that in recent years, China has engaged in dialogues and exchanges with the E.U., US, Canada and other Western countries on human rights.

China also has joined 17 international human rights covenants. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rightswill be considered by the National People's Congress.

"China consistently advocates handling and settling differences on human rights between states through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect," he said.

Though faced with obstacles, China promised to participate actively and constructively at the UN Commission meeting in March, Wang said.