14 M8
360
Times
NO SENSE FROM CHINA
Commercial as well as diplomatic relations with China are bound to come up for review with the latest revelation that a British employee of Vickers Zimmer Ltd., MR. GEORGE WATT, and a west German representative of the firm, MR. PETER DECKART, have both been under arrest since last September on charges of spying. Knowing how a country as suspicious as China can inter- pret spying to mean even an interest in developments in the country, it would be pointless to take the charges seriously in themselves.
What must be taken seriously are the persisting difficulties in conducting any kind of relations with the Chinese. A crisis arose last August when the burn- ing of the British mission in Peking was accompanied by violence against mem- bers of its staff. That subsided when it became plain that extremists in the Chinese Foreign Ministry who had en- couraged the assault were brought under attack in the curious way in which indiscipline in China is nowadays corrected. But even then MR. ANTHONY GREY, Reuters correspondent in Peking, had been confined to his house for over a month, with all access refused and his telephone cut off.
After eight months of representations he is still held in the solitary confine- ment of his home, The same refusal to operate even the minimum courtesies of international behaviour has applied to the employees of Vickers Zimmer Ltd. Inquiries by British officials in Peking as to the charges against these men have not been answered; appeals for access to them have been evaded.
Of course anger prompts suggestions of retaliation. But that is a losing as well as an undignified game with a govern ment that is much more ready to be ruthless than we are. The Chinese have not even pretended to concoct a charge against MR. GREY; he is detained as a reprisal because the British authorities in Hongkong sentenced New China News Agency journalists involved in riots. The refusal (or unwillingness or delay) in granting exit visas to members
of the British mission in Peking may be attributable to the same cause. Until the cultural revolution introduced its incalculable distortions into China's administration it seemed at least that the Chinese were ready to look after their own interests where trade and technical aid were concerned. Political pressures there may have been, but the businessmen who went to China, or the firms who sent their representatives to live in some remote parts while new plant was installed and Chinese were trained in its use, had no fear for their security. Now they have. Who might suffer next from “information supplied by the revolutionary masses " ?
Perhaps there is some room for mutual consultation between govern- ments in these matters, irrespective of the competition natural among business firms. Every category of mission in Peking trying to conduct some kind of relations has suffered of late-east Euro- pean communists, Asian neutralists, western European capitalists. China's rejection of communist trading partners has given the west Europeans much more opportunity than before in the supply of complete plants and this must always seem the most desirable trading foothold for the future benefits it brings.
Might there be some joint démarche by those governments represented in Peking or alternatively by the national organizations of commerce in the coun- tries that do the trading? Hitherto the Chinese have been able to exploit poli- tical sympathies where it suited them but it was never egregiously done. But the normal procedure for the protection of nationals in a foreign country-what- ever charges may be brought against them-ought to be insisted upon. The same applies to the basic decencies that are thought to be essential in all diplo- matic dealings. Before the cultural re- volution China operated such a code and if it was singular in some ways at least it was a comprehensible one. Now- adays no one knows what to expect of a government so churned up by its own internal wrangling.