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14. The programme in Chengdu, capital of the inland province of Sichuan, produced a good discussion with provincial family planners, who gave straight answers to straight questions. The planners saw a positive trend in the reduction of the proportion of abortions to live births to 600 out of 1, 000. The family planning expert on the Australian delegation was appalled at the poor quality of inter-uterine devices and their minimal effect in preventing conception. Chinese officials also explained regula- tions forbidding the use of ultrasound scanning to determine the sex of the foetus before birth and regulations preventing communication of information about the sex of the foetus to the parents.
15. The visit to Tibet had been tense. The delegation had been kept busy and deprived of a rest on arrival. But there had been no attempt to depict the horrors of the old society, The only historical comment was to show the group Yuan dynasty documents from the Lhasa archives showing that Kublai Khan had appointed the Abbot of Sera monastery. The group had been tailed in Lhasa by thuggish Tibetans. This had produced a major row. The presence of Garret, an experienced Tibetan speaker, had been the key element of the visit. For example the Abbot of the Drepung monastery had given a standard briefing to the delegation but had been able to whisper beforehand to Garret that his briefing was a farce carried out under constraint. Garret's general impression was that religious life in Tibet was being "degutted from the inside". The external trappings of worship had been left in place, but the intellectual and emotional base was being whittled away Monks were not allowed to pass on their knowledge of the scriptures. Despite this all the delegation had been impressed by the religious fervour of the population and the universal devotion to the Dalai Lama. As a postscript, Rigby commented on the tough-minded attitude of Tibetan cadres, promoted to replace the outgoing Han in the early and mid-80s. These people had emerged from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet and were extremely vulnerable to a change in the system.
16.
In Tibet the group had had a good session with the People's Procurate and the courts. Tibetan officials had arrived with files to answer specific enquiries. They had provided detailed information on 12 cases and accepted a list of another 100 names for further elaboration. They also added that in 1990 5 death sentences had been passed in Tibet of which 3 had been carried out. The group were entertained by the Vice-Chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Gyantso, who was a complete quisling, became very drunk and had to be carried away by his colleagues. Dinner with 4 living Buddhas had been equally unrewarding.
17.
The visit to Shanghai had been enlivened by Schacht insisting on giving the Chinese guests at the house of the Consul-General a long lecture on the heroism of the individual Chinese who had
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