Mr Blair in China

The Prime Minister's presence in China has done nothing to diminish the growing momentum of the political crisis at home.

The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, is attempting to fend off the accusation that it was his department, in league with Downing Street, which was responsible for identifying the late Dr David Kelly as the source of the BBC's allegations against the Government.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister himself, half the world away, remains at the centre of events, for his apparent attempt to circumscribe the scope of Lord Hutton's investigation into the affair.

Even in China, students have subjected him to an extraordinary barracking about the Kelly affair. Yet, this trip is genuinely important: Mr Blair's first to China since 1998. There is a great deal to discuss. He had talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing yesterday, and today visits Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Naturally he will be anxious to foster trade links between Britain and China's rapidly burgeoning economy. Fine, provided proper use is made of the occasion to raise the subject of China's occupation of Tibet - and its other violations of human rights.

If there is to be any consistency between this government's loudly proclaimed concern for human rights in Iraq and its relations with China, another repressive regime, Tibet cannot be pushed down the agenda as it has been in the past.

China continues to insist that the Tibetan leader abandons his country's claim to independence before formal talks can proceed. Mr Blair should ask for talks without such unreasonable preconditions. This is a sensitive time for the Chinese authorities - especially so after last month when Hong Kong, Mr Blair's next stop, saw the biggest street demonstrations since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The success of the Hong Kong demonstrations in postponing the anti-subversion law called for by Beijing has given some hope to Tibetans. If he fails to raise the subject of Tibet so soon after his invocation of the "universal values of the human spirit" during his speech to the US Congress last week, his rhetoric will seem hollow.