David Cameron risks China fury with extraordinary criticism of regime

[Cigar Guy]

You must set your people free: David Cameron risks China fury with extraordinary criticism of regime

By James Chapman
Last updated at 7:56 AM on 10th November 2010

• Cameron to insist that greater economic and political freedoms for China
• Remarks unprecedented for a British PM speaking on Chinese soil
• Officials bar the lawyer of Nobel peace prize winner from travelling to Britain

David Cameron will risk infuriating his Chinese hosts today with an extraordinary denunciation of their repressive political regime. The Prime Minister, who is on a high-profile state visit to Beijing, will use a public speech to champion democratic elections, a free media and independent courts as vital for a modern economy. Mr Cameron will point out that were he not in China, he would today be facing questions from the Opposition in the House of Commons. His Chinese counterparts, on the other hand, have ruthlessly crushed all political dissent.

Cheers: The UK delegation drinks a toast at a contract signing with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing

Talks: David Cameron with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during their meeting in Beijing today

Pomp: The leaders inspect a guard of honour at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

Welcome: Mr Cameron with the Chinese Premier and (right) staff hand the Union Jack before the ceremony

He will insist that greater economic freedoms for China must go hand in hand with greater political freedom for its people. His remarks come at a particularly sensitive time for the one-party Chinese state. Yesterday officials barred the lawyer of Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who has been jailed for 11 years for calling for political reform, from travelling to the UK.

The Prime Minister did not raise Mr Liu’s plight directly in talks with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, but was expected to do so at a lavish banquet thrown in his honour at Beijing’s Great Hall. Critics will point out that Mr Cameron will not set out any timetable for democratic reform in China in today’s speech.

But his remarks will be unprecedented for any British prime minister speaking on Chinese soil. On his last visit to China, as leader of the opposition in 2007, he prompted anger among Communist Party officials by making a similar but more measured call for democracy.

First stop... Tesco: Mr Cameron's first port of call was a giant supermarket

Stop-off: The Prime Minister inside the supermarket but with the Chinese products, it did not seem too familiar

Vince Cable and George Osborne are introduced to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as the UK Prime Minister looks on. David Cameron's efforts to double trade with China by 2015 were boosted when Rolls-Royce won a £750m order from China Eastern Airlines

One senior apparatchik described his remarks as arrogant and reservations for Mr Cameron and his party on the state airline mysteriously disappeared when he tried to leave the country. The Prime Minister’s decision to use today’s speech to students at Beida University in Beijing to proclaim the virtues of democracy is likely to cause similar tensions. His speech has not been cleared in advance with the Chinese, and will not be shown on state TV.

A negative response could threaten Mr Cameron’s aim of persuading China to help drag Britain out of the economic mire by doubling bilateral trade to £62billion by 2015. He will insist that China’s astonishing economic rise, which is likely to see it overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy by 2040, should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat.

‘People ... can try and shut China out, or welcome China in, to a new place at the top table of global affairs,’ Mr Cameron will say. Britain wants a relationship with China that is ‘strong on trade, strong on investment, strong on dialogue’.

Trade talks: David Cameron talking to entrepreneurs at a converted temple in Beijing

Jailed activist Liu Xiaobo (left) and his lawyer Mo Shapping who was stopped from boarding a flight yesterday

Row: The PM wants to keep the focus on trade but human rights issues threaten to overshadow the trip

‘I choose engagement not disengagement,’ he will say. ‘Britain is the country that argues most passionately for globalisation and free trade. Free trade is in our DNA. And we want trade with China. As much of it as we can get.’ The Prime Minister, who is accompanied by four Cabinet ministers and 43 British business leaders, will say it is undeniable that greater economic freedom has contributed to China’s growing economic strength.

He will explain that Britain’s electoral system means two different political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, have had to come together despite their different histories and political philosophies. ‘The Labour Party is now the official Opposition, with a constitutional duty to hold the new government publicly to account,’ he will add.

‘Indeed if I were not in Beijing, I would be preparing for my weekly session of Prime Minister’s questions in the House of Commons, where MPs question me freely about the whole range of government policy. ‘All the time the government is subject to the rule of law.’ He will add: ‘I am convinced the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together.’ Education Secretary Michael Gove, a minister travelling with Mr Cameron, last year described China as a police state.

 

[Boliao]

David Cameron looks like an eager puppy wagging his tail in front of his masters; hoping for some treat.

Behold the dragon has awaken and the world is realizing once again, the power of the Chinese race.

 

[longbow]

1) Official state visit is not a good platform to vent.
2) There is always this sense of British Empire taking advantage of the Chinese during waning days of Ching Dynasty. Hong Kong was a sore point.
3) Brit should realize that they are no longer superpower; China's main concern is US.
4) With RR jet engines falling from the sky, Chinese could alway buy more GE PW engines. The $700M in orders mentioned is puny.

 

[kensington]

What you expect ?

In China, He's David Hu but in the UK he's David Who. Nobody knows him and this is a great stage to make a scene before he got his arse kick back home. Maybe, he's not going back ?

This is not a new chapter in British relations with China, but that the country had reached a stage in its development where it was "more likely to want the things which Britain is good at."

And, that to paraphrase Emperor QianLong: "You got nothing that we wanted"

 

[longbow]

And Brits wonder why they only got a $700m deal. Last week Hu on a state visit to France signed a $20B deal.



At no stage did officials think the trip could lead to an equivalent of the $20bn trade deals signed between president Nicolas Sarkozy of France and president Hu last Friday.

Cameron finds deals with China take time
By Chris Giles in Beijing

Published: November 10 2010 14:09 | Last updated: November 10 2010 14:09

David Cameron came to China, leading a six months’ old coalition government and a large delegation of British business figures, hoping to do business.

He left realising that achieving big export deals with China is a slow and difficult process, even though he spoke softly on human rights and made no gaffes during his trip.

In a speech on Tuesday, he hailed new business worth billions of pounds, but the export deals announced on the trip amounted to less than £1bn with a Rolls-Royce deal for 16 new jet engines accounting for £750m of a total no higher than £900m.

Other big deals that had been expected – one between BP and CNOOC of China and another with Diageo – did not come off, Downing Street officials said, because the Chinese political establishment was not ready to sign even though the British companies had dipped their pens in the ink.

Officials said they hoped the deals would still go ahead in due course, but it would be a slower process than initially expected.

The strategy on the trip, one senior British official said, was to do business while also raising issues of concern to British people, especially human rights, in a “sensitive and measured” way.

This, Mr Cameron did assiduously during his visit, but he did not raise specific human rights cases in his formal meetings with Wen Jiabao, premier, and Hu Jintao, president.

It is understood that some specific cases of human rights abuse, such as the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, were raised at a banquet on Tuesday evening, but Downing Street would not confirm that such a discussion took place, nor whose name the prime minister raised if he did raise the issue, nor what the response was.

Small skirmishes over the wearing of poppies by the British delegation, which Downing Street said annoyed the Chinese because it reminded them of the opium wars, served to give the impression that Mr Cameron was taking a hard line, but the Chinese denied it was a serious issue.

Instead, on human rights Mr Cameron used a tactic first employed by US President Barack Obama to make his point without directly and publicly criticising the Chinese government.

Mr Cameron described the difficulties he faced in Britain with multi-party democracy, a free press and an independent judiciary, but said these irritations of political freedom made it “easier . . . ultimately, for the British government to come to sensible decisions and to develop robust policies that command the confidence of our people”.

This would not offend the Chinese government because it is already engaged in internal Communist party discussions on such issues and the prime minister was not commenting on that, but giving an example from his own experience.

Mr Cameron repeatedly made a point that he was not in Beijing to “lecture” or “hector” the Chinese even though he did say in a speech that Britain had “deeply held concerns” about human rights.

Lecturing China was also far from the agenda when Mr Cameron raised the issue of global trade imbalances and the danger of currency wars, sparked in part by China’s managed exchange rate which most economist believe is artificially low, boosting the competitiveness of its exports.

Instead of sticking to the line from the Group of Seven richest nations that China should work harder to make its currency reflect market pressures, the prime minister took a much softer approach.

He welcomed the fact that the Chinese government is talking about “in time introducing greater market flexibility into its exchange rate”.

“This cannot be completed overnight, but it must happen,” he said.

The question that British officials were pondering as the prime ministerial aircraft took off from Beijing en route to the Group of 20 summit in Seoul is whether all the diplomacy was effective.

At no stage did officials think the trip could lead to an equivalent of the $20bn trade deals signed between president Nicolas Sarkozy of France and president Hu last Friday.

But the main result of the trip was a £750m engine and service contract agreement with Rolls-Royce, a deal to protect the name “scotch” for Scottish whisky which is hoped to raise sales by £80m and a deal to allow the export of live breeding pigs, of which each boar sire should over 6,000 piglets a year.

One Downing Street insider described the boars as “lucky blighters”. If pigs are the future of the British economy, Mr Cameron’s luck has held. If not, he must hope future summits result in rather more concrete deals.

 

[Leongsam]

If the Chinese aren't careful, they'll end up having to kiss Ang Moh ass again.