China

Norway's relationship with China is in a special position. This is because of China's importance, growth and influence – but also because of the opportunities the cooperation entails for Norway. The political relations were in many ways put on hold after the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize award. Norway has taken note of China's reaction, but firmly upheld the independence of the Nobel Committee. Norway has repeated the protest against the imprisonment and treatment of Liu Xiaobo and continued to emphasise the importance of China respecting human rights, including the right to freedom of expression. Chinese authorities clearly warned Norway that relations between the two countries would suffer if the prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo.

However, on a general basis, there has been a considerable development in the economic, political and cultural relations. There has been an exchange of political visits at various levels, including in connection with Norway's participation in the World Expo 2010 Shanghai. This is in line with the Norwegian-China Strategy, followed since 2007.

The political dialogue concerns a number of topics ranging from social welfare policy to security policy, and from climate, environment and energy to cooperation in the prevention of humanitarian crises. A further dialogue on human rights and society is also important.

Dialogue process

Norway has had a formal human rights dialogue with China since 1997, with annual roundtables at the political level and parallel working group discussions between Norwegian and Chinese experts from academia, public institutions and NGOs.

There are various topics for the discussions in these working groups, but due to the dialogue's long-term perspective there is focus on continuity. The four working groups in the 2010 roundtable discussed the following topics.

• Workers' rights
• Minority rights
• Prisoners' and detainees' rights
• Media freedom and responsibility

Apart from the new group on media freedom and responsibility, all topics have recurred over several years.

Emphasis is placed on assisting Norwegian actors who wish to participate in human rights efforts in China. One example is the Norwegian Medical Association's cooperation with the Chinese Society of Psychiatry in the area of psychiatry and human rights. Others are the collaborative projects between the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions and their Chinese equivalents in the areas of corporate social responsibility and labour rights.

The China Programme was established at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights in 1997 to provide academic assistance for the dialogue. The programme is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its main cooperating partners are Chinese universities and academic institutions, and the topics it focuses on include human rights education, discrimination in the workplace and domestic violence against women. The China Programme also plays a key role in connection with visits of Chinese institutions to Norway, and with regard to enhancing knowledge of China in Norwegian universities and research communities. The programme takes a long-term perspective, and arranges, among other things, an annual human rights training course for teachers from universities in West China. The China Programme also translated and helped launch the first comprehensive presentation of international human rights law in Chinese, in February 2003. This textbook with its accompanying educational programme is now in use at many Chinese universities.

2010 was the 13th time in 13 years that the Norwegian-Chinese roundtable on human rights took place (source: regjeringen.no).

New possibilities for deaf children

There are approximately two million deaf children under the age of fourteen in China. Official policy has been to teach deaf children to read, write and speak, but not to use Chinese sign language. Most schools for the deaf have little knowledge of the use of sign language. In Norway, there is increasing recognition that sign language is a separate language, and it is more and more common to believe that if deaf children learn to use sign language at an early age, they can learn the same as hearing children. Norway has a great deal of specialist teaching expertise in this area, and cooperation with the authorities in the Jiangsu province was initiated in 2004.

The results have been highly positive both on an individual and organisational level.

With the help of systematic evaluation, good results have been documented for the one hundred children at the four project schools, according to Norad's 2010 Result Report. Teachers and parents have also been trained. Results at the national level cannot be documented, but representatives from schools in other provinces have visited the project, become interested and initiated their own projects.

Environment

Norway and China have had bilateral cooperation on the environment and climate since 1995. The cooperation concentrates on climate, environmental contaminants and biodiversity. Norway's goal is to contribute to strengthened environmental management in China as well as to China's environmental policy in international environmental cooperation. Cooperation on specific projects leads to increased institutional competence and provides a platform for professional and political dialogue. Capacity building increasingly takes place in central environmental management institutions in China and/or in institutions at provincial level.

Ongoing and planned projects comprise measures in relation to the new organic environmental pollutants included in the Stockholm Convention, measures to reduce pollution from mercury, and a project dealing with the relation between biodiversity management and climate changes – a topic which has priority under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Norway also supports the work of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) for Chinese and foreign experts. The council's mandate is to promote recommendations to China's top political management.