Leading article: China puzzle

In his tour of China Gordon Brown has been busy trying to save the British car industry, but he has also been promoting education. In a little noticed aside he predicted that exports to China could quadruple by 2010. Education will constitute a large part of that, including more Chinese students learning English in Britain. But does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Charles Clarke, the new Home Secretary, is preparing to remove the right of appeal from students denied visas. That would hit our education export market hard. A substantial percentage of overseas students are admitted on appeal - because they made a silly mistake in filling out their form.