Relations with China: Xi Jinping Presidency

Debate between Tim Loughton and Margaret Ferrier

Thursday 16th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton]

That is the problem: the Chinese constantly test and push the parameters. They literally push the borders in that case to test the resolve of the west and those around them to stand up, take issue, object, call out and do something about their abuses of the international rule of law and the basic human rights that we all take for granted. That was one of many incidents. I am sure that many more have gone unreported.

The hon. Member for Strangford did a fine job of outlining Hong Kong as the latest hotspot for China’s oppression of all liberties. There are the ongoing 47 primary national security law cases. The trial of the 47 people charged with conspiracy to subvert state power in the Legislative Council, launched by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy campaign in 2020, officially began on Monday 6 February. The 47 people were charged with conspiracy to subvert state power and organising and planning acts to undermine the Government. That may well be what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I are guilty of under the terms of our sanctions, but we have never actually been fully told. None of the very nice people in the Chinese Communist party head office have written to tell us why we have been sanctioned and on what basis we might be unsanctioned.

All 47 defendants were denied bail and have been held in custody for more than 700 days. The prospect of a fair trial is, of course, derisory. In August 2022, the Department of Justice directed that the case would be heard without a jury and would instead be adjudicated by a bench of three national security judges, who were appointed by Hong Kong authorities.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has expressed concerns over Hong Kong’s national security law. It is particularly concerned about the “lack of transparency” around the detention and trials of arrestees and

“the lack of access to lawyers”

in these cases. Does the hon. Member share these concerns and agree that Ministers should seek further clarity about the reality on the ground?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Hong Kong used to be a beacon of freedom, liberty, the rule of law, enterprise and entrepreneurialism in the far east. How quickly virtually all those characteristics have been snuffed out. There is not even a pretence that there is a fair trial any more. It is disgraceful that there were—and still are—some lawyers from the United Kingdom and other western countries sitting in the so-called courts in Hong Kong and overseeing the Mickey Mouse justice that the Chinese Communist party have imposed on previously free members of the community in Hong Kong.

Elgin Marbles

Debate between Tim Loughton and Margaret Ferrier

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier]

I agree that many visitors will have enjoyed a visit to the British Museum and marvelled at these fantastic sculptures, but the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to discover that I believe they should actually be repatriated to Athens where they could be appreciated in full in their original context. However, I thank him for his intervention.

The only record of the firman that we have is an Italian translation of the document, and the veracity of the document remains heavily disputed. Although a Select Committee of the House of Commons eventually voted to purchase the marbles from Elgin in 1816, the stand-out feature of the Committee’s questioning of Elgin was the vagueness of his responses regarding the permission given to take the Parthenon sculptures. According to Geoffrey Robertson QC’s excellent book, “Who Owns History?”, Elgin was unable to produce the firman during the Committee’s consideration of the purchase of the marbles and, astonishingly, told the Committee that he never kept his own personal copy of the permissions he was given.

Those admissions by Elgin himself led many people to denounce his actions in taking the marbles, even among those who supported their purchase by the British Government. Lord Byron was one of the most vociferous critics of Elgin, denouncing his actions in the strongest terms:

“Dull is the eye that will not weep to see

Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed

By British hands, which it had best behoved

To guard those relics ne’er to be restored”.

Elgin’s actions were not the only source of controversy at the time of the sale of the marbles to the British Government. The public’s reaction to Elgin receiving £35,000 from the Government—around £3.5 million in today’s money—was understandably angry. In the same year that the British Government purchased the marbles, a cartoon by George Cruikshank depicted a satirical figure of John Bull purchasing the marbles while his children cried out for bread. That is not the first time that the House of Commons has made decisions that benefit the privileged few at the expense of the many.

Whether or not the firman is authentic and the means used to obtain it were dubious or illegal, the legal position on the marbles has, to date, favoured their retention in the UK. The British Museum Act 1963 is the primary piece of legislation here, and it makes it clear that the objects and collections of the British Museum are held by its trustees. Disposal or selling of objects in the British Museum collection is forbidden except in limited circumstances, which include printed materials where duplicates exist or objects that were illegally looted by the Nazis.

The general principle of that legislation and subsequent amendments to it is designed to protect cultural assets and provide the proper independence between Government and museum trustees. Because the legislation is drawn up in that manner, the Greek Government have been disinclined to put the legal position to the test in international courts. However, there is scope for the British Museum Act to be amended to cover the specific circumstances of the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles. I believe that potential amendments to legislation should form part of a process of mediation and dialogue between the Greek Government and the UK Government regarding the future of the Parthenon sculptures.

I turn to some of the other arguments that are often used to justify the Elgin marbles staying in Britain. Those who argue for retention of the marbles use cultural preservation as a key support. Their argument, encapsulated in the universal museum declaration, effectively places immediate cultural preservation above considerations of the circumstances in which treasures and other artefacts of major cultural significance were acquired. Some go as far as to suggest that Elgin’s actions were heroic and that the marbles would have been destroyed had he not acted in the way that he did by bringing them to Britain.

I have some sympathy with the idea that, had they not been acquired by museums outwith their countries of origin, many of the world’s cultural treasures would have been lost. Sadly, we have seen some despicable acts of cultural vandalism in recent years. In Syria, we have seen Daesh’s wanton destruction of parts of Palmyra, the great mosque of Aleppo and the old city of Damascus, which are just a few of the culturally significant sites that have suffered in that brutal conflict. But to compare what has happened in Syria with the proposed repatriation of the Elgin marbles would be to compare apples and oranges. The parts of the Parthenon frieze that have been retained in Greece have survived two world wars, a civil war, a military dictatorship and bankruptcy of the Greek state.

Regardless of views on whether the marbles should be returned to Greece or remain in Britain, it is reasonable to suggest that they would be preserved and secured for many years to come. Both Greece and the UK can offer outstanding museum facilities to showcase the marbles, and the new Acropolis Museum has already demonstrated how that would work in practice. The argument on cultural preservation comes down to one question: artistically, does it make sense for the Parthenon marbles to be reunited, placing them in one location where they could be appreciated and admired the world over? That is not only the right thing to do; it would enable the marbles to be appreciated in the original context in which they were sculpted.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am enjoying the history lesson, 204 years after the Select Committee of this House thoroughly investigated the acquisition and found it to be totally legal. However, the hon. Lady says the marbles could be better appreciated in Athens. Why does she think they could be better appreciated in Athens? Last year, the British Museum had over 6 million visitors, viewing 50,000 items, including the Elgin marbles, out of a total collection of 8 million objects, for free, while the Parthenon Museum in Athens, which destroyed many layers of archaeology in its construction, attracted 1.8 million visitors at a cost. Those marbles are seen in an international, classical, archaic Hellenistic context in the British Museum that is just not available in Greece. They are possessions of the world, and the British Museum, as a world museum, is the best place for everyone to appreciate them, rather than this petty nationalism about sending them back to a city state that does not exist any more.