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MATT CHORLEY
October 21, 2015
Chinese President Xi Jinping was today challenged on his country’s ‘deeply, deeply troubling attitude’ to human rights on live television as he was confronted by the reality of Britain’s free press.
A Downing Street press conference was electrified by a question from the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg which left British officials squirming.
The start of President Xi’s state visit had passed off without incident with protesters kept away from key events or drowned out by pro-Beijing groups.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was today challenged on his country’s ‘deeply troubling attitude’ to human rights on live television as he was confronted by the reality of Britain’s free press
But appearing in Number 10 alongside David Cameron, he was forced to smile as Miss Kuenssberg took him to task before claiming he must ‘combine human rights with China’s reality’.
In came as the Prime Minister trumpeted a deal which will see China take a 33 per cent stake in a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
The lavish welcome given to the Chinese President has been attacked as a ‘national humiliation’ by a former close adviser to the Prime Minister, who is under pressure to raise concerns about human rights and ‘dumped’ cheap steel blamed for the loss of thousands of British jobs.
“A country that isn’t democratic, isn’t transparent and has a deeply, deeply troubling attitude towards human rights”
BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg
Ex-Number 10 policy guru Steve Hilton said the UK should be imposing sanctions, not rolling out the red carpet.
Mr Cameron has also been forced to deny that the new ‘golden era’ of relations with China will not damage Britain’s special relationship with the US.
Amnesty International says China executes more people than any other nation – potentially thousands a year – while freedom of expression is limited and activists face harassment and arbitrary detention.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn raised concerns about human rights at a face-to-face meeting with President Xi last night, but behind closed doors.
David Cameron hoped to use the press conference to champion a series of multi-billion pound trade deals with China
However, it was in the full glare of the TV cameras today that President Xi was challenged on the issue at the press conference in front of dozens of British and Chinese journalists.
Miss Kuennsberg began by asking how a sacked steel worker from the north east would have felt seeing President Xi travelling through central London in a golden coach yesterday.
She then challenged the Chinese President: ‘Why do you think members of the British public should be pleased to do more business with a country that isn’t democratic, isn’t transparent and has a deeply, deeply troubling attitude towards human rights.’
“We combine the universal value of human rights with China’s reality”
Chinese President Xi Jinping
President Xi, who had the question translated via an earpiece, looked up from his papers and gave a thin smile before returning to his notes.
When he came to answer, he said: ‘Coming to the human rights that you asked.
‘China attaches great importance to protections 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 there is always room for improvement.
‘All countries need to continuously improve and strengthen human rights protection to meet the needs 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 co-operation and other countries in the area of human rights. Thank you.’
Mr Cameron welcomed President Xi to Downing Street to finalise a deal to build the first nuclear power plant for a generation
Mr Xi has been attending events in London with some 25 officials in tow, including four doctors and his personal bodyguard
Mr Cameron also hit back at the criticism of the visit, claiming there was no contradiction between forging closer relations with China and raising concerns about issues like steel and human rights.
‘I totally reject the idea you either have a conversation about human rights and steel or you have a strong relationship with China,’ said the PM.
‘I want both and we are delivering both and it’s when you have that strong relationship that you are able to discuss all of these issues.’
Mr Cameron said: ‘A strong relationship is in both our countries’
interests not just because it brings investment and jobs and higher living standards for our peoples – vital though these things are.
‘The more we trade together, the more we have a stake in each others’
success and the more we understand each other, the more we can work together to confront the problems that face our world today.
‘The stronger the relationship between our countries, the more we will be able to have a serious dialogue. We may not always agree, but we can discuss issues openly and constructively.’
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen welcomed President Xi’s statement that there is ‘room for improvement’ in China’s human rights record, but added that it is ‘a considerable understatement’.
She added: ‘With more executions taking place in China than the rest of the world put together, with lawyers and human rights activists being arrested and disappeared, and with even the most modest forms of dissent being severely punished, the Chinese president should be promising wholesale human rights reform.
‘Mr Xi should now move from rhetoric to reality on human rights. He can demonstrate his sincerity by immediately releasing the jailed Nobel Peace laureate Lui Xiaobo and the human rights lawyer Wang Yu, as the first in a wider set of much-needed prisoner releases.’
CAMERON IS ‘PUTTING HUMAN RIGHTS ASIDE’, SAYS AI WEIWEI
Artist Ai Weiei
David Cameron has a record for ‘putting human rights aside’ and must raise the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping, dissident artist Ai Weiwei said.
Mr Ai, a political activist who has secured a visa to stay in Germany after being detained for 81 days in China, said Mr Cameron must not shy away from discussing uncomfortable topics.
He told Sky News: ‘I think the British Prime Minister has had a record on putting human rights aside which is very bad strategy and also is a very bad aesthetics, because this certainly doesn’t represent the British people.’
Mr Ai said China was changing ‘very dramatically’ and its people believed in the democratic movement, but any transformation would only come about from a strong joint effort.
‘When they see Mr Cameron not put human rights as an issue, (that) will make people very disappointed.’
He said Britain was at risk of sacrificing essential values for short-term gain: ‘This is wrong and lowers standards. I think yes China does need to develop and we do need to have very stable conditions for any kind of development,
‘But this kind of development only can come from respecting the truth, respecting the history, and having strong values … those values can make China have a better future.’
The nuclear deal was struck as David Cameron and senior ministers including Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Home Secretary Theresa May, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Energy Secretary Amber Rudd, and British Ambassador to China Barbara Woodward met the Chinese delegation in the Cabinet room led by President Xi Jinping (right)
Security has been tight for the Chinese leader’s four-day programme and the Metropolitan Police has spent more than five months planning for the visit.
During a Chinese state visit to the UK in 1999, the Metropolitan Police was accused of using vans to shield the presidential motorcade from protests, which it denied was the aim.
The force was criticised for its hardline handling of the peaceful protests and admitted following a High Court case that its officers acted unlawfully when they removed demonstrators’ banners and flags.
The Free Tibet group, which calls for an end to Chinese occupation of Tibet, is also attempting to follow Mr Xi across London with a van carrying a digital photo of the Tibetan flag, an image of Mr Cameron being gagged by a Chinese flag and rotating messages including ‘Xi Jinping: Tibetans will be free’ and ‘Warning: Chinese president in town. Don’t mention Tibet or human rights’.
Jeremy Corbyn challenged China’s strongman president Xi Jinping over human rights abuse during private one-on-one talks last night
Last night Mr Corbyn challenged President Xi over human rights and the dumping of cheap steel during one-on-one talks.
The Labour leader was given the unprecedented meeting after threatening to raise concerns at the state banquet at Buckingham Palace.
Mr Corbyn praised the Chinese leader for his country’s ‘remarkable’ achievement lifting millions of people out of poverty.
But he also ‘raised the issues of human rights and the impacts of Chinese imports on the UK steel industry’, a Labour spokesman confirmed.
