TNAG-0031-FCO40-67-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 119

571

China (Detained

13 JUNE 1968

CHINA

(DETAINED BRITISH SUBJECTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-[Mr. McBride.]

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East): Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity of raising the case of George Watt and others and of drawing the attention of the House to the plight of this gentleman and at least 12 other British citizens and some of their families who have been detained by the Chinese. Mr. Watt is an engineer who was employed by Vickers-Zimmer, a British company which has been engaged since 1966 in the erection of a polypropylene plant in Lanchow in China. The plant was commissioned by Techimport, a Chinese trading organisation. Mr. Watt, a Belfast man, was employed by the company as an engineer and along with one or two other engineers was at the site in Lanchow supervising the con- struction of this plant.

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His wife joined him in China in July last year and they spent two months together there. She left in September and shortly after leaving Peking she was searched on her way through Shanghai and some family photographs were taken from her luggage. She was fully searched, she told me. The photographs were ordinary family ones, all of which had been taken in China in the presence of the Chinese interpreter who accompanied them, and none of which were in any way of a nature that might have infringed security or military secrecy.

However, following the searching of Mrs. Watt, Mr. Watt was placed under house arrest in his hotel in Peking. Later I believe he was taken back to the hotel in Lanchow where he had stayed when he was working with Vickers- Zimmer and kept under arrest in his room in that hotel. I am told by mem- bers of the company that none of his colleagues or friends in the company were permitted to see him or speak to him. The only communication they they received was when he sent bills for his food to the company asking that they should be paid by the company and when he asked that his effects should

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British Subjects)

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be sent back to Britain. Except for those notes, no other communication was received and none of his friends in Lanchow working for Vickers-Zimmer or other British companies there were allowed to see or to talk to him, nor was he able to write to his wife or family in this country.

The British Mission in Peking, which was informed of the situation, made attempts to get in touch with him but it also was unsuccessful. The Chinese authorities did not allow any access to Mr. Watt between the middle of Septem- ber, when he was placed under arrest, and March this year when the world was informed by the New China News Agency that he had been charged and tried for espionage convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment. No other in- formation about the trial was given to the British Mission in spite of the repre- sentations it made to the Chinese. No British Consular official was able to attend the trial. No note of the evidence against Mr. Watt was forwarded to the British Mission in Peking. Neither Mr. Watt's friends in the company nor the British Foreign Office know anything about the proceedings at the trial. All that we know-

it being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. McBride.]

10.0 p.m.

Since

Mr. McMaster: All that we know is that there were two releases from the New China News Agency, one on 12th March of this year which reported Mr. Watt's address and the later one which reported his trial. This is all the in- formation which anyone has had about Mr. Watt since September last. his trial and his reported conviction by the New China News Agency, no diplo- matic access has been granted to him. So far as we know, no letters from his wife have reached him. His wife tells me that she has written to him but that the letters have been returned through the firm. None has been received by Mr. Watt. Mr. Watt. No letters from Mr. Watt have reached his wife or his family. They are in complete ignorance as to his state