China Says Non-Interference Principle Not Outdated ����China said Wednesday that despite the profound changes after the end of the Cold War, the principles of respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs are far from outdated. ����The point was reiterated by Qin Huasun, Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, at a UN session on the annual report of the secretary general on the work of the UN ����Deviation from or contravention of these principles will lead to the possibility that sovereignty will be willfully weakened and widely accepted norms of international relations severely damaged or even obliterated, thus inflicting dangerous consequences on international relations, Qin said. ����He advocated that the issue of humanitarian assistance should be handled in accordance with the principles of humanitarianism, neutrality and fairness. ����Giving different treatment to different regions in terms of humanitarian assistance by certain country or country bloc based on their political and economic interests has caused imbalanced distribution of the assistance, the Chinese envoy said. ����In Africa, he said, for too long the humanitarian disasters have not received active or adequate assistance from the international community. "This situation is very worrisome and we hope it can be reversed soon," he added. ����Commending the UN for its work in poverty eradication, Qin said China hopes that the organization will conduct in-depth discussions on the ominous impact of globalization on poverty elimination and cope with relevant specific strategies tailored to the need of developing countries. ����"We hope that UN operational activities will make poverty elimination their priority task," he said. (Xinhua) WorldNews 1999-10-08 Page6 Full Story in Chinese