Listen: BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg confronts President Xi over China’s human rights

One of the clever things that politicians try to do is to redefine words and concepts that everyone thought they knew the meaning of. Take today’s ‘press conference’ that David Cameron and Chinese President Xi held in Downing Street. That ‘press conference’ consisted of statements followed by two questions, though dozens of journalists had turned up.

Fortunately, the question from the British media came from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who asked the Prime Minister how he thought a British steel worker would feel that the Chinese president was being ‘ferried down Whitehall in a golden carriage’ and whether there is ‘any price that’s worth paying in order to further our business interests with China?’ She turned to the President and asked ‘Why do you think members of the British public should be pleased to do more business with a country that is not democratic, is not transparent, and has a deeply, deeply troubling attitude to human rights?’

President Xi’s answer was:

‘China attaches great importance to the protection of human rights. We combine the universal value of human rights with China’s reality and we have found a path of human rights development suited to China’s national conditions. With regard to protection of human rights, looking round the world we know that there is always room for improvement. All countries need to continuously improve and strengthen human rights protection to meet the need of the time and the people. On the issue of human rights, I think the people of our respective countries are in the best position to tell, and China is ready to, on the basis of equality and mutual respect, increase exchanges and cooperation with the UK and other countries in the area of human rights.’

The President seemed to have guessed what he would be asked by his own press corps (perhaps that’s part of ‘China’s reality’), and appeared to have written an answer beforehand. What an interesting definition of a press conference, and what an interesting definition of human rights, we were shown today.