Letters | 11 February 2012

China’s foreign policy

Sir: As Hillary Clinton just stated, China and Russia ‘neutered’ the UN by vetoing the sanctions on Syria. Russia did it because Syria is an ally with which it does business. China vetoed because it wants no judgments on how it has mauled its own population since ‘Liberation’ in 1949. Beginning with the slaughter of millions of landlords in the early Fifties, through the persecutions of the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen, not to mention the suppression of Uighurs and Tibetans, Beijing never shrinks from internal violence.

It is to Foreign Secretary Hague’s credit that, like Secretary Clinton, he condemned China’s veto. This is almost unheard of in Chinese affairs. It is claimed here and in Washington that Beijing dislikes public criticism — as if everyone else likes it — and prefers straight talking ‘behind the screen’. This is a Western conceit that permits no condemnation, ever, as in the recent meeting here between Prime Minister Cameron and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Although Beijing did not veto the Libyan action, it is unlikely it will come right on Syria. After all, it is keeping in prison for 11 years the Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who said at his trial that in China words alone are crimes.
Jonathan Mirsky
London W11

Knight moves

Sir: Toby Young (Status Anxiety, 4 February) makes an interesting observation that both parties have taken the populist view by supporting the removal of Fred Goodwin’s knighthood. Surely the coalition could have made better political capital out of insisting he kept his gong? It would serve as a reminder of the folly of the previous Labour government’s ‘light touch’ financial regulation.

Lest we forget, this laissez-faire stance resulted in city institutions making supra-normal profits, which were taxed by a gleeful treasury.