Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 1999
THE RT
HON CLARE
SHORT and MS
SUE UNSWORTH
20. Okay. You also said in the strategy paper
that China had lifted the one child quota in two districts on
an experimental basis. Will you tell me whether there are any
plans to extend this initiative?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) There are really often false
accusations made about our position on the single child policy
in China, which obviously we do not support. We give some funding
to UNFPA which is leading the international work in China in trying
to get a move away from the one child policy and has negotiated
an agreement that they can work in 32 districts on the basis of
the principles agreed at Cairo which is by choice, that people
have access to a service by choice and that there is no force
or compulsion and that programme is in place and, I am informed,
starting to spread beyond. So we hope very strongly that that
will become very popular and accepted in China and will spread
across China, but we are helping to fund a UN Agency, not leading
the work ourselves.
21. Do you know how much we are contributing?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) From memory, it is something
like £15 million a year, but that is for our total contribution
to UNFPA across the world. Some part of that would be our contribution
to the China programme.
Chairman
22. What is the mechanism within Whitehall for
co-ordinating policy within the UK Government on human rights
and other policy areas towards China?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) Well, the mechanism like any,
you know; the department that leads on any particular question.
If there is an interface with another government department there
will be consultation but they are the lead. In the questions about
meetings with the Chinese Government on—I think there is
an Annual Meeting with the EU—
(Ms Unsworth) And we participate in it.
(Rt Hon Clare Short)—to talk about the general
human rights situation and that is very much a Foreign Office
lead and some of my officials go to talk about the social and
economic rights of the poor. This is true of all areas of policy;
obviously the lead department leads, but just as some of our work,
in Africa say, the Foreign Office is still the lead political
representation of the British Government, but our work is a very
predominant part of Britain's relationship with some African countries.
Then we will get on with our development work and we will keep
the Foreign Office informed and if they have any worries about
it they discuss it with us. Similarly, they are the political
lead and if we have any worries we discuss it with them and they
keep us informed of positions they are taking.
Chairman
23. Have you had, at Ministerial level, any
discussions on human rights and China?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) No, I was present at the meeting
in No. 10 when the President of China came recently. There was
a discussion between him and the Prime Minister. I witnessed it;
I was not speaking.
24. So it is a sort of ad hoc arrangement
really? When you feel the need for some co-ordination you ask
your officials to talk to the Foreign Office; is it that sort
of loose level, is it?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) Generally, that is the system.
We are a more joined-up government than most governments, but
the big thing is for each department to lead where it should lead;
otherwise you have so many parties at the table you can never
get anything moving, but keep everyone else involved. Then if
you have any unhappiness or you want to question anything, you
take it up, usually at official level first and then you engage
Ministers if it cannot be resolved and that is the process right
across the Government on all questions when they overlap more
than one department, which many, many things do.
25. If you are all leading in your own particular
directions you can see, can you not, that if we leave it to your
Department, the Foreign Office, the Department of Trade and Industry,
Department for Education and Employment and Department of Health
to lead on their subjects in the directions which they so decide,
you can end up with a UK policy which might actually be contradictory?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) No, absolutely not and I think
that traduces what I have just said. Each department leads on
its area, but consults the others and keeps them informed. The
lead department lays down the policy—the whole Government
is bound by that—and if any department is unhappy with the
policy of the lead department, they question it first at an official
level and then through Ministers until it is thrashed out. When
we prepare our country strategies, we lead and do the draft, but
all relevant departments are consulted and it is not finally agreed
until everybody is happy and then that is the statement of policy
of the British Government, but that we lead on.
(Ms Unsworth) Just to say, we obviously have very
close and ongoing contacts with the Foreign Office at official
level and particularly in the Embassy at Beijing there is increasing
contact between our development section and the political and
the economic sections of the Embassy, because there is a big read
across between economic, social, civil and political issues and
those links are being strengthened as our own presence in the
Embassy is strengthened.
26. I worry about this, because having been
to Beijing twice, I find that Foreign Office officials tend to
have fallen in love with China and everything that is Chinese
and therefore they are incapable of giving objective advice and
therefore I am wondering how they are misleading us?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) May we suggest that the Committee
might want to invite some officials and maybe Ministers from the
Foreign Office to answer this. I think it is really important
to thrash this out and get to the bottom of the things that are
worrying you. May I just say something on that last comment? We
find that Foreign Office officials often go a bit native in each
of their countries because they tend to be people who have specialised
in that area or that language and they have a love and affection,
as they should, and then there is always that—
27. Love affair.
(Rt Hon Clare Short) So that kind of goes with the
job, but we all keep talking.
Chairman: Well, the last Ambassador said
he thought there was absolutely no trouble in the country at all.
In fact, he played golf with the Foreign Secretary and he told
him there was nothing wrong, over the weekend; Tiananmen Square
took place two weeks' later. Mr Robathan?
Mr Robathan
28. Secretary of State, we certainly agree that
Foreign Office members often go native. I think that is a fair
one, but the Foreign Office are also forever telling us when we
meet them that they have a much smaller budget than DFID, understandably.
Now I am still worried—and I shall remain worried about
many of these things—particularly, if we are giving money
to this UNFPA which is very sensible and there is a huge problem
with population explosion which is very largely under control,
possibly you could say through draconian policies in China, but
if we are giving money to UNFPA which is then associated with
some of the practices that are going on—and it is bound
to be associated with them—and particularly the one that
gets to me is not trying to restrict the number of children to
be born, because one could understand why they would wish to do
that, but forced sterilisation. There seems to be a lot of evidence
that women are forced to endure sterilisation. Now how can we
possibly take part in any programme that is associated with that?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) Firstly, your throw-away remark.
Of course we have a bigger budget than the Foreign Office. They
do our political representation. They need embassies and people
who talk to them. We do development for, hopefully, hundreds and
thousands of people.
29. Of course, yes.
(Rt Hon Clare Short) You need to employ more resources,
the appropriate resource for the job. But secondly, with respect,
you could not have been listening to what I said before. It is
not the position of the British Government or UNFPA to support
any use of force or threat on sterilisation or one child policies
in China or anywhere. We are all signed up to the Cairo agreement
which was very much that services must be provided if people have
freedom of choice on the size of their family, but they have access
to contraception and proper services so that they can make decisions
about their lives. And that is the decision of UNFPA and it has,
in my view, extremely importantly, negotiated this agreement with
the Chinese Government in 32 counties—that is quite a small
area actually—but that they can run a full, respective of
Cairo, reproductive health care service, giving people access
to all the modern forms of contraception by choice with no force,
and it is on condition that there will be no force for sterilisation
or numbers of children imposed on people living in those areas
by the Chinese system. They are doing that, and I just hope and
pray that it succeeds. If that is proved to be successful and
popular in China, no doubt it will spread and we will see the
beginning of the end of the oppressive one child policy in China.
So I strongly support UNFPA in that work and I think that anyone
who does not like the oppression that has gone on in China ought
to support that work and there are some people who misrepresent
the UNFPA's work—and I think disgracefully, myself—because
anyone who wants to bring an end to oppressive one child policy
in China should celebrate what they are doing, not falsely attack
it.
30. Well, I think it is a good answer—
(Rt Hon Clare Short) I am not saying you do that,
but some do misrepresent it.
31. I have to say it is a good answer, except
that I have to say that I think most people in Britain would question
whether we give any aid at all to China, given some of the human
rights policies there and I certainly do. However, if I might
move on?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) I will tell you how many letters
I get. I do not agree with you. I find that people in Britain
understand the complexity of bringing about change in poor countries
or countries that have had a history of totalitarianism, communist
rule, the kind of suffering that went on in China during the Cultural
Revolution and so on and people are pragmatic and they want improvement
in people's lives across the world and if we can help to bring
that about, I think the overwhelming bulk of British people think
that is what we should be doing.
32. Well, I think perhaps we might disagree
on that, although I take your point. I think there is always a
question of whether one should be engaged or leave somebody isolated.
I think in this case I would take the latter course. May I just
ask one particular question though about your Department's actions
on this matter because there is a lot of discrimination, as you
know, against Tibetans and apparently an area which I do not know
very much about is Xinjiang—XUAR, it is referred to; Xinjiang
Uighur Autonomous Region—and there is a lot of discrimination
apparently against minorities there we are told, I have never
been there, but given that the bulk of your development assistance
is channelled through governmental rather than non-governmental
sources, what is being done to ensure that the Chinese Government
does not discriminate against ethnic populations in the provision
of social welfare and that people from these ethnic minority populations
have equal access to the benefits of our development assistance.
(Rt Hon Clare Short) I should say first I do not recognise
the name of the place that you just referred to; do you Ms Unsworth?
(Ms Unsworth) No, I do not.
33. X-i-n-j-i-a-n-g. Xinjiang; it is in the
far West?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) In Tibet —
Chairman
34. XUAR. I know DFID likes alphabetical. Does
that make sense? No?
(Ms Unsworth) No, but it is a big Muslim area.
Mr Robathan
35. Largely Muslims?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) I will bring Ms Unsworth in because
she obviously recognises the area, but in the case of Tibet—again,
I think it says in the memorandum—we have some programmes
through NGOs, not very large, but that is the work that the Department
funds in Tibet. I think a Mission did go at an official level
to look at that work.
(Ms Unsworth) They did.
36. I will ask Ms Unsworth to comment on that,
but on the general question of minorities, we are very engaged
and the education programme we are doing in Gansu when I went
to visit, this is a Muslim area, a poor area, a Muslim community
that speaks its own language. You are getting close to the border
with Mongolia and it has that kind of history and those kind of
origins and we are extremely engaged in supporting a people to
have their rights in their own language and proper respect for
minorities. I had that discussion with many people when I was
in China and they sign up to it in theory, but as we all know,
saying in theory that all minorities are fully respected and getting
that into the practice of a country—it is the same question
in Vietnam—is never easy. So we are very engaged in trying
in that particular area to both improve the education of the children
and show that it can be done in a way that is respectful of minorities
and in no way threatens the wider community. May I bring Ms Unsworth
in more generally?
(Ms Unsworth) Well that is essentially the answer,
that wherever we are working, ensuring both that minorities and
other potentially vulnerable groups, including women, that their
rights are respected is an integral part of what we are doing.
In the far West we have at the moment just programmes through
the Joint Funding Scheme and through the Small Grants Scheme and
in Tibet we have a couple of biggish projects working with Save
the Children Fund on water and education. We have necessarily
had to take a bit of a limited geographical focus, particularly
starting up a new programme in China, because you cannot work
everywhere and therefore we are working in the mid-West—Gansu,
Sichuan, Yunnan—where there are quite large groups of minorities,
but they are not the far West and we are not at the moment working
there.
Chairman: Right. Before you start, Mrs
Follett, there are two more to come in, Mr Khabra and Mr Grant.
Mr Khabra?
Mr Khabra
37. May I ask a difficult question? Is it the
case that when you are dealing with a country like China, a Permanent
Member of the Security Council and most powerful nation in the
world, that you find it difficult to negotiate on issues of human
rights, such as political and civil rights, that you may have
to have a different standard altogether of your conversation with
that government than the one that you will have such as a poor
country or underdeveloped country or a developing country?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) Absolutely not and that was the
false suggestion that was made in your report. It is not the case.
In all our strategy documents, our programmes and my own engagement
with Ministers and governments we will not have double standards
and as I said earlier there was no pressure on us to have a programme
in China. We were phasing out the ATP because we had made the
broader decision, as a Government, so it was an open question
for the Department and for me whether by engaging in China we
could advance the condition of humanity and particularly of the
poor of China, which is our particular job. I decided we could
work in a way which could advance those things and I have argued
with all the Chinese Ministers that I have met about these issues
openly and clearly, and I always will. If we could not work in
a way that was respectful of the rights of people with whom we
are working, I would not work. We would not be doing any good
for them if we had to kind of collude in their oppression in order
to be there. That would not be advancing their human rights. So
no, I am not under any pressure of that kind. There are judgments
to be made, country by country, of how well you can do, but it
is not a judgment under pressure, as you are implying.
Mr Grant
38. Secretary of State, I do not want you to
get the impression that my colleague is speaking for the whole
Committee when he is questioning the position in relation to China,
but is it not a fact that the isolationist policy of the previous
Government, the United States Government and so on, never made
any impression on the Chinese and this approach of positive engagement
with the Chinese is actually bearing results?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) My own view is this is a very
big prize for the people of China and for humanity, China opening
up, joining the international community, people being able to
visit, trading and sharing ideas and so on. It started with President
Nixon, not a person in politics that either you or I would particularly
support—the opening up of China, so that different political
traditions have played different roles in this, but I think it
is of enormous importance to the people of China and humanity.
What China is engaging in in trying to make the transition both
from Communism and opening its economy up, is a fantastic historical
task. They are nervous about the potential disorder. They have
seen what has happened in Russia and they do not want that to
happen in China and my own view is that the success of this is
a fantastic thing for humanity and the people of China and that
progress is being made. It is not perfect, but progress is being
made.
Barbara Follett
39. On to World Bank policy. China has emerged
as the World Bank's biggest borrower and the Bretton Woods Project
in their memorandum state that in countries around the world the
Bank does not hesitate to impose strict conditions on its loans,
requiring errant governments to mend their ways, clean up corruption,
reduce spending and focus on the needs of the poor, but concludes
that conditionality has not been a feature of bank lending to
China.[1]
What is the UK Government's view on the conditionality of World
Bank loans to China?
(Rt Hon Clare Short) The only World Bank loan to China
that I have personally engaged with is this—what is that
called?
(Ms Unsworth) It is called the Western China Poverty
Reduction Project.
(Rt Hon Clare Short) And there was a campaign that
lots of people who were very concerned about Tibet engaged in
against the project. I had a meeting in the office to look at
the quality of the project, whether it would reduce poverty, whether
it was properly respectful and concluded that it was a beneficial
project, because it is not actually in Tibet although some people
of a Tibetan minority live there, but it would be beneficial to
people and it would be wrong for us to vote against it because
there is a very pro-Tibet lobby, particularly in the United States
of America. So I have engaged in some detail in that particular
project. Beyond that, I did meet the World Bank representative
in China when I was in China and we are just at this stage where,
as we said earlier, China is ceasing to be eligible for IDA lending,
the highly concessional lending, so there is a real prospect of
World Bank lending to China reducing very considerably. I think
myself that broadly the World Bank has played a useful role in
engaging early in China and in the opening up of China in the
assistance of China to start the transition away from a Communist
system that tends to oppress human rights as we all know. May
I ask Ms Unsworth to just add to that?
(Ms Unsworth) One would need quite a sort of detailed
overview to assess the judgement that the World Bank conditionality
in relation to China was different than in relation to other places
and I do not have that detailed information. However, I do have,
I suppose, an impression of the way the Bank works, particularly
in the social sectors which is where we have engaged with them,
and I do not recognise a difference in approach and standards
that they are applying in China from the approach that they are
applying, for example, in South Asia. Corruption has been a very
major concern of the Bank in China and ways to limit that, and
in their social sector projects they have the same range of concerns,
so far as I am aware, that they have in other countries. But the
basis for that judgment, I do not know, I do not any of us has
that detailed picture.
(Rt Hon Clare Short) We could get you more information,
but it is not my impression that they have had a different standard.[2]
1 Not printed. Copy placed in the Library. Back
2
Note by Witness: As far as the British Government is concerned
the conditions-although they are no longer called that-of World
Bank loans to China do not differ from those applied elsewhere.
We consider it important that there is consistency in the application
of these principles. Back
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