Why Li's Handshake With Queen Is Uncomfortable

The desire for Britain and China to take their relationship in trade and investment to a new level is obvious.

Put simply, China has the cash and the spending power that could really help Britain.

Equally, the UK has experience and expertise which China could use in so many sectors from energy, design and innovation to finance, education and health.

That seems to explain why Britain has rolled out the red carpet in a big way for Premier Li on his three-day London trip.

There was an audience with the Queen - unusual given Mr Li is Prime Minister, not head of state. There was a guard of honour too.

But watching Mr Li shake hands with the Queen and then inspect the soldiers from the Coldstream Guards, formed up in his honour, makes some observers feel uncomfortable.

The reason? Two words: "human rights". It is a loaded phrase, I know. It means different things in different contexts and to different people.

The Chinese premier was given the red carpet treatment in London

In Britain there is sometimes frustration, even outrage, when convicted foreign criminals are allowed to remain in the UK because deportation infringes their "human rights".

But what about when the phrase is applied to China, as it so often is?

There is a tendency to throw the phrase into conversations and news reports without any context. What does it mean? How does it relate to China?

Here are a few thoughts:

:: Political freedom

I met a tourist in Beijing the other day. We got talking. Politics came up. It had entirely slipped his mind that there are no elections in China.

These days, the country has such a dynamic and capitalist feel that, for some, it's easy to forget that it remains a one-party state. Its people are unable to choose who governs them.

The Tiananmen Square massacre was a brutal suppression of political freedom

:: Freedom of expression

Not only are they unable to choose their government, but they are unable to question the government either.

Chinese citizens are far from free to express their political opinions. Since the new leaders took over in March last year (the fifth generation of continuous Communist rule) there has been a step change in the number of people detained for attempting to express their opinions either at gatherings or online.

Using the catch all phrase "rumour-spreading" the government has detained people in unprecedented numbers.

They include prominent scholars, academics, lawyers, even relatives of those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.

Trials often take place in private - off limits to the media, which isn't free to report what it wants anyway.

:: The internet and the media

Journalists in China face restrictions and intimidation

Visitors to China are often shocked to discover that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are all blocked in China. So too are several news websites.

On television, BBC World and CNN International both regularly "go to black" when reports about China are aired. A Chinese censor in a control centre somewhere literally presses a button to cut transmission.

All this in a country that is now considered a grown-up global player. 

:: Foreign reporters

As a foreign correspondent in China, I find myself subjected to extraordinary obstruction in my attempts to report on certain issues such as trials, anniversaries of sensitive events, investigations into forced abortions and the persecution of Christians and Muslims.

We are intimidated, physically assaulted and constantly reminded that our visas need to be renewed annually. In other words: "Behave or you're out".

:: The death penalty

A woman shouts as she is sentenced to death before her execution in 2001

There are plenty of countries around the world that use the death penalty, but according to Amnesty International, China executed more people last year than every other country combined.

Many had sentences handed down in closed trials. This week alone, it emerged that 13 Uighur Muslims were executed for offences ranging from arson to organising terror attacks.

The trials were closed and the fate of the accused only announced after the executions. China has 55 capital offences, including many non-violent crimes.

:: Religious freedom

Chairman Mao is often quoted as having said that "religion is poison". Sixty-five years since his revolution brought the Communists to power in China, it's still not straightforward to practise religion in China - as we discovered in December. 

:: The one child policy

Liu Xinwen was forced to have an abortion because of the one child policy

Concessions were made this year in China's continued policing of the one child policy. If couples meet certain criteria they can now have a second child.

Yet in many provinces and for many couples, one child is all they are allowed. If they fall pregnant again, the consequences can be, frankly, heartbreaking.

This is not an exhaustive list. Far more details can be found on the British Government's website. Their list certainly suggests that the UK isn't ignoring China's human rights record in favour of investment opportunities.

Indeed, diplomats tell me that the stronger the economic and political relationship, the easier it is to raise human rights concerns.

Still, in the context of what "human rights" means in China, it makes the visit with the Queen and the pomp on the parade square feel, for some, unpalatable.

A last point...

Millions now out of poverty: people power or Communist triumph?

China is, these days, more willing than ever to confront the accusation that it has an appalling human rights record.

Its argument is this - the Communist leaders talk of human rights in collective terms rather than individual ones.

The Communist Party argues that it has "pulled millions people out of poverty" through economic and social reforms.

In that context, they say they have vastly improved the human rights of millions of Chinese citizens.

Others would argue that it wasn't the Communists who "pulled" the people out of poverty, it was simply the decision to "unshackle" them economically which allowed the Chinese people pull themselves out of poverty.

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