SHANGHAI (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Chinese students on Monday that basic human rights and free speech were fundamental to a healthy economy.
Schroeder was addressing students of Shanghai's Tongji University on the second day of a three-day visit to China, a nation which has a dismal civil rights record and a tight grip on Internet content.
"People who create wealth should be allowed, within reason, to share not only in the country's material riches but also decision-making power," Schroeder told an audience of several hundred students and university lecturers.
"Over the long term, innovation and economic expansion can best succeed in an open society that does not impede the free flow of communication," he said after accepting an honorary doctorate.
U.S. rights officials have pressed for the release of more than 200 alleged political prisoners in China, amid a string of fresh arrests of dissidents in recent weeks.
Bowing to pressure, Beijing freed dissident Xu Wenli and sent him into de facto exile in the United States on Christmas Eve. Activists welcomed the move but said it was far from enough.
China also maintains an iron grip over Internet access as part of a censorship policy aimed at curbing content viewed as subversive, sporadically barring surfers from search engines such as google.com and walling off some foreign media sites.
"A free Internet can drive every country's economy, science and social development. I stress, every country," Schroeder said.
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http://asia.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=UIZUY5UR2J5Y2CRBAE0CFFA?type=topnews&StoryID=1973203#
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