§ Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a further statement on the regulations regarding visits of British diplomats to certain towns in China, including Tientsin, Shanghai, and Canton.
§ Mr. Ian HarveyI am grateful for this opportunity of correcting a misleading impression, for which I apologise, which may have been given by my reply to my hon. Friend's Question on this subject on 21st July. The position is that the regulations announced on 30th June in fact made no change in the procedure governing visits to the places in question by members of the United Kingdom and other diplomatic missions. That is to say, even before 30th June intended visits had merely to be notified 48 hours in advance. Nevertheless, the Chinese authorities have on occasion refused to allow visits to the places in question.