Letter: China gestures

John Waters (Letters, 12 January) rightly argues that we should give the Chinese government a chance.

It is unfair to single out China for criticism given its willingness to join our government in its China engagement plan. China has, after all, made great strides in both human rights and industrial development since the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution - strides that Scotland would do well to respect.

It would be fitting if the Scottish Government made some gesture of atonement for the barbarism meted out to the Chinese people by our British government during China's "century of humiliation" when Scots were in the van.

I recently suggested such a gesture to the Scottish Government - a voluntary inventory of artefacts looted for the Summer Palace in Beijing in 1802 held by Scots museums - but Fiona Hyslop declined to be associated with this. Such a pity she seemed to think a gesture of remorse for the robbing and looting of China's treasures as punishment for not paying reparations for the Opium War was outwith her remit. Such a gesture may have reaped untold benefits, for us and the Chinese people.

Tom Minogue

Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline, Fife