CODE 18-77
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VISIT TO CHINA BY BRITISH IPU DELEGATION
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I attended the 'report back' session by the Delegation in the IPU Room in Westminster Hall on 1 April. I think all the Delegation except Mr Whitney were present. spoke to Mr Du Cann and Mr Adley inter alia before the formal session began. Mr Du Cann was full of gratitude for the FCO's contribution to the briefing and setting up of the visit. I told him that we had seen a summary report of the talks with Yao Yilin. Mr Du Cann said that he thought that the Delegation had presented the Hong Kong issue extremely well during this meeting (I think we have still not seen Peking telno 164 referred to in Mr Atkinson's letter of 19 March?).
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2.
When the formal session opened Mr Du Cann was fulsome in his tributes to all concerned in the organisation of the visit, principally the IPU Secretariat. He described the visit to China as 'a magic carpet of discovery'. He believed that it had been a very successful visit and that the Delegation had made an important contribution to the political relationship. It was now up to individual participants to make their contribu- tions in whatever way they could to encouraging the Chinese in the direction in which they were now going. Mr Bottomley, the Deputy Leader, agreed with what had been said. He described contacts he had had with a number of Chinese trade unionists, which he thought had been valuable. Mr Adley spoke at length and, like Mr Du Cann, laid particular stress on the political relationship. He, like almost all the Delegation, seemed to have been bowled over by their reception and to have formed a favourable impression of China's future development under its present policies of greater individual initiative. He made a particular point of China's need for aid and his hope that the ODA/FCO would respond constructively (he had told me earlier that he had met Mr Neil Marten this week and had urged an aid programme for China on him; Mr Marten had by Mr Adley's account been quite enthusiastic). Mr Adley also stressed the importance of keeping up contacts with the Chinese established during this visit and gave every indication of considerable enthusiasm. Mr Faulds waxed lyrical about the archaeological excavations they had seen in Xian and less lyrical about the dusty museums they had visited elsewhere (which he compared to many British museums). Lord Gisborough introduced a note of dissent. Unlike others who had gone before he did not believe that China could ever in the foreseeable future overcome its economic problems, which were primarily agricultural (he is an agricultu- ralist) and aspire to being a major power. He noted that he was the only member of the Delegation who had come away with this view.
3.
There were a number of other interventions. The overall impression I derived, as did Miss Elizabeth Wright of the Great Britain-China Committee, the only other non-MP present, was that, like most first-time visitors to China, the MPs were indeed rather starry-eyed. This bears out what
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/Mr Whitney
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