This is an excellent article by Larry Elliott in the Guardian.
Whilst I wish George Osborne and his delegation well in China, imagine how much trade and goodwill has been lost because of David Cameron‘s ill thought out foreign policy comments and poorly timed meeting with the Dalai Lama.
Any thoughts?
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Dr Alf makes an excellent point about the George Osborne visit to China and David Cameron’s stupifyingly ill informed comments and foreign policy towards China.
Clearly, they (China’s leaders) have not forgiven him these remarks (they have very long memories), which is why the delegation includes Boris Johnson, for whom the Chinese have a lot more time.
The Dalai Lama may well be the spiritual leader of Tibet but unlike China and its leader, he is not capable of trading with us nor creating jobs for our people.
Tibet is as much a part of China as my own county of Hertfordshire is part of the UK, so any talk about human rights of Tibetans must necessarily take place in private, and whoever is conducting those discussions must have clean hands before starting to lecture and pontificate.
The UK, as a participant in an illegal war in which 775,000 people died and 2 million refugees were created (Iraq), does not have clean hands so David Cameron was in no position to say anything and should not have done so.
David Cameron violated that principle and this country has been punished by having £8 billion gbp in trade and contracts held up for nearly 18 months because of it.
While he (Cameron) remains in office, he should remain silent, and when he eventually moves onto other things, preferably sooner rather than later, he needs to focus on the job in hand.
In addition, the Chinese were not prepared to even receive David Cameron and even now would prefer not to see him.
Our approach to China must be farsighted and guided by realpolitik rather than misplaced idealism.
That is, to recognize that they are the coming superpower, and reach an understanding with them particularly around exporting,inventions and trade.
By doing that, we can use their Sovereign Wealth to help modernize our infrastructure and trade those things which we are good at, and the expertise we have in certain sectors which they need and will pay for.
In this way, the UK’s focus must be relentlessly directed towards exports, job creation for our people and making it easier for Chinese tourists to come here and spend money.
Currently they (Chinese tourists) spend 6 to 8 times as much in places like France, Germany and Italy, as they do here in the UK, and tourist numbers from China are doubling every year.
David Cameron and Theresa May’s approach is to make it difficult and expensive for Chinese tourists to come here and the roadblocks are not being removed fast enough as Willie Walsh, CEO of BA and others such as the Director General of the Institute of Directors keep saying.
What is actually needed is a new more internationally minded Prime Minister, such as Boris Johnson as a replacement for Cameron, along with a more internationally minded Government which understands our need to earn our keep as a nation.