CHINA: China has made progress on human rights and is more tolerant of debate than 15 years ago. But that doesn't mean the issue has gone away, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing.
It's over 15 years since Chinese tanks and the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army rolled into Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and violently suppressed the fledgling pro-democracy demonstrators gathered on the vast square.
Thousands died - the death toll is unlikely ever to be revealed - and the response was one of global outrage.
China became a global pariah and the western powers, both United States and the European Union, imposed an embargo on the sale of weapons to China that has stood until now.
European leaders now want the ban to be lifted. So what has changed appreciably since the embargo was imposed in China? If students were to gather on Tiananmen Square today and start calling for more democracy, would there be a similarly violent crackdown?
Just walking down the street you can tell that China is a very different country today compared to 1989 and the country has made phenomenal economic progress in transforming itself from a closed, backward place into a modern society, open to the world.
Formerly taboo issues, such as coal mining disasters and public corruption, are now reported in the Chinese media as the government tries to show the general public it is serious about reform.
Human rights as a concept can now be freely discussed - the government proudly points out it wrote them into the country's constitution last year.
Around the time of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown, western-style human rights was regarded as a code for subversion of the Communist Party. Times have changed, but many critics say the concept is still more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
The country has made improvements in its human rights record - the atmosphere has become considerably less oppressive than in the 1980s. Among themselves, people speak openly about politics, even about what happened in Tiananmen Square, although the subject is still taboo in the tightly-controlled media.
CNN's broadcasts about China are routinely censored, you cannot watch the BBC website and getting information about Taiwan on the internet is difficult at best.
While the arms embargo is a subject of hot debate in Dublin, Brussels and Washington, the issue itself is not publicly discussed in China.
A news assistant working at the New York Times was arrested and jailed on charges of selling state secrets after the newspaper reported that former leader Jiang Zemin was going to step down as head of the army, a few days before he did so.
In and around the National People's Congress, China's annual parliament, dissidents or people who have complained about having their land grabbed by unscrupulous investors, are routinely locked up to avoid any possible disturbance.
Newspaper editors who push the envelope on stories are jailed on trumped-up corruption charges. Anyone demonstrating on Tiananmen Square - the Falun Gong spiritual movement, regarded by the authorities as a dangerous cult, pro-Tibet protesters - can count on being arrested, at least.
There is no free right of assembly in China, all trade unions except those sanctioned by the Communist Party are banned, often forcefully.
Things are certainly changing but there is still a long way to go.