Letter: Let's not waste this chance with China

There are so many ways in which the high-level Chinese visit to Edinburgh and London (your report, 11 January) can benefit all involved, but above all I hope that China's vice premier, Li Keqiang, is being encouraged to discuss human rights issues while he is here.

We seem to be so fearful about losing the potential for China to be our great trading partner that there's a risk we will let this huge and increasingly powerful country get away with inappropriate behaviour.

While it is excellent news that PetroChina has signed a "memorandum of understanding" to invest in refining operations in Grangemouth, and emotionally quite marvellous that the Chinese delegation came bearing pandas, we must not risk losing out by speaking out against unacceptable human rights abuses.

I am very much aware that delicate conversations of this nature will be taking place behind closed doors, but it is still important that our government indicates that it is taking human rights seriously.

John Waters

Cambusnethan Road

Edinburgh

Ok, we have trade agreements and we're sharing ideas about energy, and we have the pandas. Let's see how the opposition can complain about this.

Brian Bannatyne-Scott

Murrayfield Drive

Edinburgh

Before Derrick McClure (Letters, 11 January) gets carried away by his hagiography of the SNP performance at Holyrood and admittedly the even more lamentable performance of the Labour contingent, let us remember that "Kim-Sal-Mond", the dear and glorious leader of our wee northern state, has said that he would consider a coalition with Labour after the May election.

Long term, dedicated nationalists may baulk at such an amalgam of political mediocrity and malleable alloy of so many bureaucratic base metals, but there is a certain vulpine, indeed "Salmondine" cunning about it.

Any real debate on independence can be locked away in an intellectual fall-out bunker, energy policy can at last just be handed openly over to Scottish Renewables, land reform can be left to suffocate in an anerobic peat bog and Trident can be painted tartan, but keep its Union flag. The natives will, of course, be given more wee sweeties, coloured beads and fancy ribbons.

Ron Greer

Blair Atholl

Perthshire