Cancellation of EU-China Summit: "Communist bullying-tactics will not work in Europe" says Graham Watson

3.00.00pm GMT Thu 27th Nov 2008

Commenting on the Chinese government's decision to cancel the EU-China Summit, due to the planned meeting between the current President of the EU Council, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Dalai Lama, Graham Watson, Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe, said: "The People's Republic of China risks remaining on the wrong side of history. Communist bullying-tactics of this kind will not work in Europe. The world hoped that the Beijing Olympics and China's growing economic maturity would be accompanied by a growing political maturity. And the growth is clearly slower than we hoped. Thankfully, as my meetings this week in Taipei and Tokyo have shown, there are strong repositories of democratic openess and tolerance in Asia".

An ALDE delegation is visiting Taiwan and Japan this week, under the leadership of Mr Watson.