THE hypocrisy surrounding the issue of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status for China is astonishing and when looked at closely will only add to the fact that the US and other Western countries have no more interest in the human rights of those people livingunder the cudgel of the Chinese Communist Party than they have had for any other peoples in similar circumstances. If they did they would not be accepting the token release of a few dissidents now and again as ''progress'' in order to justify their trade. The effort put into the ''liberation'' of Kuwait when measured against other problem areas of the world was proof that the price of a barrel of oil is held to be more important than any personal freedoms.

Where is this effort in relation to the peoples of Tibet who have been subjected to a barbarism and cruelty without parallel? Where children have been removed from their parents for ''re-education''. Where children have been forced to execute their parents. Where the Tibetan people have been systematically murdered, tortured and imprisoned under the harshest of conditions. All this done by the same people who now use words like ''sincerity'', ''democracy'', ''co-operation'' and recently ''kind hearted''. This type of cynicism I expect from the Communist Party of China. I expect more than ''hypocrisy'' and ''cant'' from the so-called ''free'' societies of the world, and so do the people of Tibet.

IAN HENDRY Tin Hau