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China and the West

A point that I forgot to mention in my speech is that when the Government slipped through this place—incidentally, without any formal ministerial statement—a change in policy with regard to Tibet, saying that Tibet was now understood to be a fully integrated part of the People's Republic of China, some of us felt that the Government failed to use that sufficiently well as a lever to persuade the Chinese to address some of the human rights issues in Tibet. I hope that the recent visit by the Minister, who raised 19 individual human rights issues, is a portent of the Government taking a stronger line with the Chinese Government on human rights in the future.