Carey's Tiananmen Square visit dropped

Peking - Some deft rescheduling of the official programme yesterday meant that the Archbishop of Canterbury had to cancel a planned sight-seeing trip to Tiananmen Square. Dr George Carey had been due to spend 50 minutes touring the square, the centre of the violent June 1989 government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, writes Teresa Poole.

Officials with the Archbishop said there would be 'no time' to reinstate the visit, but denied that it had been taken off the agenda on purpose. Instead, Dr Carey toured the Forbidden City where China's emperors used to live, and held private meetings with the leaders of the Religious Affairs Bureau, the ministry in charge of regulating religion in China.