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East Asia

Is there not a bit of a conundrum here for all those of us who want to thicken and deepen relationships with China? One must be able to establish a basis of friendship and respect to have the appropriate conversations, but our experience has been that beating the Chinese around the head on human rights and other issues sometimes simply causes them to retreat back into themselves. That is a difficult issue for the Foreign Office, or for any Foreign Ministry that is seeking to deal with China, and I should welcome my right hon. Friend’s thoughts on it.