20 NOVEMBER 1942, Page 14

OURSELVES AND CHINA SIR,—Among the factors which I reported in

my article " Ourselves and China" as representing the Chinese point of view was the following: " A Chinese will tell you that he would a hundred times sooner deal with a Briton who had never been to China than one of the ' experts' who have lived a lifetime there, -but who are inclined to retain their first impression of the Chinese as the predominant one in their minds."

I fully sympathise with Sir George Moss who, in his letter to you on the subject, would be expected to disagree with this statement. But I beg him to reconsider his assumption that a reporter of Chinese points of view, with which he does not agree, must automatically be "credulous." Sir George's reaction to my article in itself provides sturdy evidence in support of the Chinese preference I have quoted above. He spent some 36 years in China, retiring from the Consular Service in 1938.—Yours

faithfully, NIGEL TANGYE. 73 St. James Street, London, W. z.