In its struggle against international terrorism following 9/11, the United States developed rendition - the international transfer of an individual without customary due processes - as an instrument of policy. Rendition became associated with the use of coercive interrogation techniques - techniques often crossing the threshold of torture, in violation of international standards to which successive American administrations committed themselves. To a degree yet to be fully established, Britain was implicated in that policy. Whatever its alleged benefits, rendition's cost is clear - not simply in terms of the human impact of the abuses, but also in terms of the huge damage done to the moral authority of the West. By creating a powerful image of injustice, rendition gives Islamist radicals a recruiting and propaganda tool. Moreover, the policy is a severe setback to efforts to enhance shared international standards in humanitarian and human rights laws. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition was founded in December 2005, following the emergence of allegations that the United States had been operating a programme of 'ghost flights' and 'black sites'. In the five years since then the Group has contributed to public knowledge and awareness of the debate surrounding rendition and Britain's involvement in it.

As Foreign Policy Adviser to Margaret Thatcher and then John Major from 1984 to 1992, Sir Percy Cradock was at the centre of government for most of the last decade. He was particularly active and influential on China, where he was Charge d'Affaires during the Cultural Revolution and Ambassador from 1978 to 1984. He masterminded the joint Declaration on Hong Kong in 1984 and played a leading role in later negotiations over the colony. In this book he reviews his experiences of China over thirty years, since his first posting there in 1962. It is a chronicle, ranging from the famines after the Great Leap Forward, through the madness of the Cultural Revolution, to the reformist years of Deng Xiaoping, the tragedy of Tiananmen, and finally to present-day China, now with the fastest growing economy in the world. In narrower focus, it is also an authoritative account of Sino-British dealings during that turbulent time, in particular the critical negotiations over Hong Kong. These memoirs offer the inside story, illuminating past crises and present controversies, and making a contribution to the understanding of a coming world power.

This volume reassesses the origins, nature, and aftermath of the war which was fought in the Korean peninsula between 1950 and 1953. Attention is focused particularly on the extraordinary first year of the war, which witnessed profound variations in the fortune of both sides. This included the initial North Korean attack, the counter-offensive launched by the United States Command, China's dramatic entry into the war, the retreat of UN forces, the controversy over the conduct and dismissal of General MacArthur, and the decision to commence armistice negotiations.