The UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, arrived in Beijing yesterday for a nine-day visit to China, and will this morning sign a memorandum of intent with China on future human rights work. The aim is to improve technical co-operation between China and the UN on human rights.
Speaking to reporters after arriving from Geneva on the most important visit of her year in office, Mrs Robinson said she would seek to ensure that agreements reached during her tour would have "practical implications" for advancing human rights.
"We will discuss the whole range of issues in relation to the promotion and protection of human rights - that's my mandate," she said. "I will also take every opportunity to meet a wide range of the civil society here in China."
It is not clear if Mrs Robinson will meet any dissidents. Yesterday 116 Chinese activists publicly asked her to visit labour camps and urge China to stop sending dissidents for punishment by "re-education through labour".
In a letter, publicised by a Hong Kong human rights group, they said: "Re-education through labour, a means of stripping people of their freedom for several years without trial, totally conflicts with [China's] constitution and is an extremely grave violation of human rights."
Disseminated by the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, the petition was said to be organised by six dissidents, five of whom have been subjected to re-education through labour.
The itinerary for Mrs Robinson's visit, the first to China by a UN human rights commissioner, includes Beijing, Tibet and Shanghai, and will culminate in a meeting with the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, next week.
She will also meet members of China's parliament and the judiciary, and representatives of non-governmental organisations.
High on Mrs Robinson's agenda is China's promise to sign the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights this year.
It has signed but not ratified the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Meanwhile, a potential source of diplomatic embarrassment during the trip was avoided with the release at the weekend of a Chinese television producer working with the US television network CBS News.
Ms Natalie Liu, also known as Liu Qingyan, was arrested on Wednesday.
She was freed on Friday evening after signing a statement in which she acknowledged working for a foreign news organisation in Beijing without permission or accreditation.
Ms Liu, a Chinese citizen who lives in the US, was closely questioned about her year working as a freelance producer in China and her contacts with Chinese dissidents.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group said Ms Liu was detained to "teach her husband a lesson".
The group said Ms Liu's husband was instrumental in the US government's decision to give about 80,000 Chinese students legal permanent residency status in the US after the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
Her husband is on China's "blacklist" of 49 exiled dissidents who are not allowed to return.