How heartening to read that the human rights situation in China is improving (China is rising as the US falls. Britain can’t ignore this reality, 20 October). Otherwise, the irony of a row about steel occasioned by President Xi’s visit would be well beyond a joke. In 1958, the slogan of Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” had been: “Surpass Britain in 15 years in industrial development”. As we know, among the consequence of this ambition was “The Difficult Three-Year Period” from 1958 to the end of 61, aka: the Great Chinese Famine during which between 35 and 55 million died. The plans to industrialise and collectivise farming at the same time are widely considered to have been the cause of this human disaster. But, here we are: China has long since overtaken us. And, cream on the cake, here is President Xi having dinner with the Queen. Can we not say, then, that the millions of deaths were well worthwhile? Chinese teachers can be flaunted in TV documentaries as superior to our own. Jeremy Hunt can talk up their industriousness. And Martin Jacques can tell us not to worry about their human rights record. Mao must be smiling in heaven.
Brian Winston
Lincoln
• Would it be possible to persuade both Cameron and Osborne to visit the Royal Academy Ai Weiwei exhibition before they clinch any deals with China? At the heart of the exhibition is a gigantic installation called “Straight”, which commemorates the deaths of some 5,000 children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Weiwei’s investigation of the large number of schools destroyed in the earthquake revealed that they had been constructed from faulty Chinese steel.
Dr John Saunders
Oxford
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