Attitude to China
Sir, — According to Giles Mathews of the “Daily Telegraph” (“The Press,” June 12), “we should not flatter ourselves that China gives a fig for our trade, friendship or values.” The sour tone of his article confirms the feeling as mutual. Perhaps he got indigestion from the banquet he describes so derisively. Mathews cynically mentions Western interests in China — as a trade repository and antiSoviet military buffer. He labels China “barbarian,” which is hilarious given historical facts such as the Opium Wars; export of cheap coolie labour and support for corruption — all Western induced. The Chinese remember well who were the true barbarians, whence they came and what sort of “friendship, trade and values” they offered. Before the Chinese Revolution in 1949 a million peasants died annually of starvation and other evils seemed endemic. Not even the “Daily Telegraph” or its biased writers can accuse China of such guilt and callousness today. —
Yours, etc., M. T. MOORE. June 12, 1984.
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Press, 13 June 1984, Page 18
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162Attitude to China Press, 13 June 1984, Page 18
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