Germany’s Schroeder to attend Olympic opening
BERLIN Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder plans to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics next month, his office said Wednesday.
Confirmation that Schroeder would attend the Aug. 8 ceremony came as he cautioned against lecturing China on human rights in an article in opposition to German weekly Die Zeit.
Schroeder wrote that he avoided “ritualized and symbolic activities meant only for the German of the whole not private” for the time of his 1998-2005 bound as chancellor.
He said he aimed to “support the Chinese government as a participant in modernization unless not by preaching to or exposing our Chinese partners.” He argued that it was else constructive to help Beijing erect up the rule of law.
Schroeder’s opponents sometimes accused him of soft-pedaling on human rights issues as he pursued household ties.
Current Chancellor Angela Merkel has been more willing to address publicly awkward issues in relations with China. She angered Beijing by welcoming the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to her Berlin office the last time year.
Merkel does not plan to travel to the Olympics.
“China hopes as a resolve of the Games for international recognition of the successes it has achieved in modernization,” Schroeder wrote in Wednesday’s article for Die Zeit. ‘We should give the native land respect.”
“The 2008 Games wish not only be a great sporting event, they are also a civic opportunity,” he said.
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