Ruairi Quinn's boycott of the State dinner for Premier Zhu Rongji was an error of judgment, which owes more to the vagaries of opposition politics than to any productive diplomatic policy or stance.
This week's visit by the Chinese Premier and his high-powered delegation was an extremely sensitive and intricate affair and possibly one of the most important in our recent history. How best to balance the desire to benefit our own economy through increased trade and economic co-operation with that country, with the loathing many of us feel for the human rights record of that state?
Across the board it is safe to assert that in Ireland we have been most vocal on the subject of China's human rights record. We have made our opposition to human rights abuses in that country known clearly on the international stage. We have serious disagreements with China on the issue of human rights. In our dealings with China however, as with all relationships no matter how micro or macro where such disagreement exists, there is simply no alternative to dialogue. This week Mr Quinn made a mistake in not attending Dublin Castle and that absence will do nothing to improve the human rights situation in China.
What is odd about Mr Quinn's dinnertime snub to the Chinese Premier is that he has in the past opposed such behaviour. A couple of months ago, the Fine Gael leader, Michael Noonan, decided to break the party consensus on foreign policy and boycott the proposed Forum on Europe. His decision was taken with an eye to electoral advantage, rather than a desire to advance our foreign policy. Responding in this newspaper, Mr Quinn castigated the Fine Gael leader for his decision. It seems extraordinary now that Mr Quinn should seek party political gain from such a delicate matter as the visit of a Chinese Premier.
A Labour Party source was quoted as saying: "He recognises the necessity of dialogue with the leaders of China, but Ruairi also feels that our dissatisfaction with the country's shocking human rights infringements should be marked." If dialogue is so necessary then, surely the best means of marking his dissatisfaction is to use dialogue to give it voice, as Minister Cowen and the Taoiseach did.
The absence of the leader of the third largest party in a small State like ours will do nothing to advance the cause of human rights in China. The Labour leader, or anyone else for that matter, making their reservations on China's human rights record clear in a frank manner will obviously have far more effect, especially as the Chinese already indicated they had no objection to discussing human rights during their visit.
As a result of the dialogue which this week's visit created, Mr Zhu has committed himself to raising with China's judicial authorities the case of Zhao Ming, the Trinity College postgraduate student detained in a labour camp. Mr Quinn's dinner absence, on the other hand, achieved absolutely nothing in the sphere of human rights. It did, of course, achieve a couple of minutes radio plug-time and a few column inches for the Labour Party. Mr Quinn's move plainly concerned domestic politics, high-profile at home but utterly ineffectual where it counts - human rights reform.
What if Amnesty International was to take a leaf from the Ruairi Quinn book of international diplomacy and ceased its dialogue of dissent with the Chinese leadership? As the recent history of Northern Ireland has taught us unequivocally, the politics of boycott and the snub is never an alternative to dialogue and engagement. Imagine if the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, which last year visited China and Tibet and where Mr Quinn's colleague Michael D. Higgins played such an important role, adopted such an approach. What if those of us on that committee had exchanged our examination of Chinese officials on their human rights record in Tibet, our dialogue with interest groups in Tibet, with the high-profile huff similar to that which Mr Quinn assumed?
The necessity to talk, to make our opposition to human rights abuses clear, is more necessary than ever before. There are very real issues to be dealt with; the repression of the Falun Gong movement, the high levels of executions, the persistent denial of basic human rights. Let's deal with them, with political pressure on the Chinese government such as that exerted by Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern, with public protests such as that of the students of Trinity College Dublin on Wednesday evening. Such open political protest is a celebration of the democratic freedoms which we enjoy in Ireland and which we would like to see in China.
In placing local politics before the bigger foreign affairs picture this week, however, Mr Quinn is not alone. There is a long and often humorous tradition of such tempting political behaviour in Ireland. Back in the 1950s when the respected Liam Cosgrave, as minister for foreign affairs, and who was subsequently a great taoiseach, addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the ArabIsraeli conflict, he used the occasion to appeal to the Catholic sensibilities of the constituents of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, in appealing to the Muslim and Jewish parties to "resolve their differences on Christian principles".
dandrews@irish-times.ie Dick Walsh is on leave