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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China strongly rejected Wednesday appeals from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Western leaders to consider military intervention when governments massacred their own citizens.
China's foreign minister, Tang Jiaxuan, told the U.N. General Assembly that NATO had created an "ominous precedent" when it bombed Serbia this year over Kosovo this year without approval of the U.N. Security Council, in which China has veto power.
"We are opposed to the use of force under whatever pretext," Tang said. "The issue of human rights is, in essence, an internal affair of a country and should be addressed mainly by the government of that country."
The minister's speech was the most hard-line objection yet to calls by Annan, President Clinton and European leaders for recognition of the right of humanitarian intervention when states commit massive human rights abuses.
In contrast the foreign ministers of Germany and Italy, who addressed the assembly Wednesday, said the United Nations had to develop new criteria to deal with humanitarian interventions, such as in Kosovo and East Timor.
"The international community now takes military action to deal with tragedies that only a few years ago would have left us indifferent," Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the trend toward humanitarian invention could develop in two ways -- either outside the United Nations or with U.N. approval, which would need unified action by the Security Council.
Consequently, he said the permanent five members on the 15-nation council should justify using their veto in a public statement to the General Assembly and thereby "bring about substantial progress toward using the right of veto more responsibly."
Otherwise, he said, there was a risk the United Nations could be bypassed in the future, as it was in Kosovo.
"In the 21st century the individual and his rights must take a more prominent place, alongside the rights of states, in the concept of security as defined by the international community," Fischer said.
The General Assembly this week resounded with arguments over the lessons the world should draw from this year's crises in Kosovo, East Timor and numerous African troublespots.
Many speakers pointed to a paralysis in the Security Council in enforcing its own decisions, with China, at times backed by Russia, opposing the authorization of military intervention, except for Timor after Indonesia consented.
At the same time the United States, has been reluctant for years to approve a official U.N. peacekeeping forces, especially in Africa, it has to help finance.
Amid widespread calls to focus more world attention on Africa's plight, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and his French counterpart Hubert Vedrine met four African foreign ministers to launch a joint policy approach to the continent.
And the crisis in East Timor, dramatized by the killing of a Dutch journalist, was a major focus of discussion in U.N. corridors on the sidelines on the assembly.
The European Union urged Indonesia to cooperate fully with the multinational force deployed in the former Portuguese colony to end bloodshed unleashed by pro-Jakarta militias after the territory voted on Aug. 30 for independence from Jakarta.
Cook said Britain would support an international war crimes tribunal to bring to justice the planners and perpetrators of the violence, although several other countries, including East Timor's former colonial ruler Portugal, have misgivings about antagonizing the Indonesian army at this point.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission will discuss creating a commission of inquiry at a meeting in Geneva Thursday.
At the same time senior officials of the five permanent members of the Security Council worked intensively on a set of principles for a new U.N. policy toward Iraq, which foreign ministers will discuss Thursday.
The aim is to bridge differences between the United States and Britain, on the one hand, and France, Russia and China, on the other, on how to link a suspension of some economic sanctions with Iraqi compliance with a new disarmament system.
Diplomats said it may take several more weeks or months to agree a Security Council resolution by consensus. Iraq has already dismissed the plan and demanded an unconditional lifting of all sanctions imposed in the 1990-91 Gulf conflict.