Foreign Secretary ably demonstrates the ‘fur coat and no knickers’ nature of the UK’s approach to human rights in China and Tibet

Following a lightening visit to China during which he failed to deliver an unequivocal public statement on human rights and never publicly mentioned Tibet, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband today launches the UK’s Annual Report on Human Rights. This juxtaposition of events serves to highlight the stark gap between UK government rhetoric and practice. When in China the Foreign Secretary should have taken the opportunity to make a strong and unequivocal public statement on the British government’s concern about human rights violations in Tibet to a Chinese audience - the Chinese administration and the Chinese people.

And tomorrow the umpteenth UK China Human Rights Dialogue resumes, having been cancelled by China in January as a slap on the wrist for the British government’s criticism of China over the execution of Briton Akmal Shaikh. The timing of the resumption of the dialogue is not coincidental: it has allowed the Foreign Secretary to travel to China with an apparently clean bill of human rights health.

Free Tibet Director Stephanie Brigden commented:

“The British government’s approach to addressing human rights violations in Tibet and China is clearly a case of ‘fur coat and no knickers’: rich talk about human rights conceals a poor reality: there are no human rights improvements in Tibet as a result of years of so-called ‘constructive engagement’. ”

The UK government holds up dialogue in itself and meetings between British Ministers and their counterparts as concrete results, despite the fact that the human rights situation for Tibetans in Tibet has actually seriously deteriorated. As the Foreign Secretary landed in China the Chinese administration in Lhasa were cracking down on ordinary people in a ‘strike hard’ campaign aimed at intimidating dissenting Tibetan voices.

Recognising the ineffectiveness of current UK policy the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in its most recent Annual Human Rights Review stated: "There remains little evidence that the British Government’s policy of constructive dialogue with China has led to any significant improvements."

Ends

For further information:
Matt Whitticase, External Communications
t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7515 788456 and email: matt@freetibet.org
Stephanie Brigden, Director, Free Tibet
t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7530 528264 and email: stephanie@freetibet.org