Should Jeremy Corbyn stand up to China’s leader?

LABOUR’S Jeremy Corbyn is morally right but commercially wrong if he raises China’s human rights record with President Xi Jinping (Mail). To understand why the red carpet is being laid out, Mr Corbyn should read Shakespeare’s Timon Of Athens: money ‘will make black white... wrong right, base noble... knit and break religions, bless the accursed, make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves and give them title, knee and approbation with senators on the bench’. According to the June 2010 Chatham House Our Common Strategic Interests: Africa’s Role in the Post-G8 World report: ‘Many countries, particularly those (like Britain) that have framed their relations with Africa largely in humanitarian terms, will require an uncomfortable shift in public and policy perceptions. Without this shift, many of Africa’s traditional partners . . . will lose global influence and trade advantages to the emerging powers in Asia, Africa and South America.’ No one will take the UK seriously if all we have is good intentions about human rights. SAM AKAKI, Democratic Institutions For Poverty Reduction In Africa, London W3. As A member of the Christian Peoples’ Alliance I disagree with many of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, but on his concern about the poor human rights record of saudi Arabia and China we are at one. With regard to the Chinese president’s visit, he should indeed take this opportunity to speak out about the ongoing occupation of Tibet, the discrimination against Christians in many regions, the denial of a free press, treatment of dissidents, sending refugees from North Korea back to that hell-hole where they are likely to be executed, no protection for unborn children and, on animal welfare, failing to take serious measures to stop the import of body parts from endangered species.

JOHN WAINWRIGHT, Potters Bar, Herts.