Simply Smith

The recent State visit of China's President Jiang Zemin has caused a few red faces in Government circles.

Although how you can see the red faces through the egg I don't know. As a public relations exercise I should think that it ranks alongside the current French insistence that French beef is good for you. However, as H R Haldeman said in 1973 about the Watergate crisis: once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's awfully hard to get it back.

This Government is perhaps showing its true colours: trade with China is more important than the rights of millions of Chinese who cannot speak for themselves.

It's not even that we have a great trade balance with China for the £3billion worth of imports from China we export less than £1billion worth of goods.

Of course, I have no doubt that our leaders would like the Chinese political system to be more democratic, but is kow-towing to China, an equal permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the only strategy that Tony Blair can think of?

Surely our leaders have more imagination than that. Don't they realise that kow-towing only increases the Chinese belief that their civilisation is superior to ours: when we were still putting woad over our bodies they were busy inventing gun powder and moveable type.

The sight of the Queen being forced to rub shoulders with the head of a state that routinely executes hundreds of 'criminals' publicly every year turned my stomach.

Lounge suits and respectable behaviour do not change facts, the present Chinese state is dictatorial and repressive.

Add to this television pictures of British police breaking up peaceful demonstrations in London, ripping down banners and shredding leaflets and I begin to wonder about our so-called civilisation.

For generations this country has been known for its openness and its high regard for human rights. I really don't give a toss if his sensibilities are offended by the sight of dissent.

I also note with interest that President Jiang has not given up his country's claim to the island of Taiwan.

He is equally not particular about the methods his country is prepared to use to achieve the return of that island.

At Cambridge University he is reported to have said: "We do not undertake to renounce the use of force precisely for the purpose of facilitating a peaceful settlement". What on earth does that mean?

This is the sort of double talk we have come to expect from dictators: from Hitler to Milosevic. Why are we engaging in dialogue with someone whose very speech is the antithesis of decency?

However, let's get back to French beef. I wonder what the ordinary Monsieur in La Rue is thinking about his much vaunted cuisine.

The recent revelations about Gallic farming methods call to mind a saying involving black pots and kettles.

I have to say that I've never much enjoyed Golden Delicious apples, so perhaps I'll add the fruit to my list of disliked food. A list that has Peking Duck at the top.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.