As Cameron Visits, China Paper Criticizes Britain

[News_Editor]

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron stands before a painting before a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Dec. 2, 2013. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING-- With British Prime Minister David Cameron in the country on an official visit, a Chinese state-run newspaper on Tuesday labeled Britain a fallen great power worthy now only as a destination for tourists and students.

The Global Times editorial appeared as Cameron emphasized the potential for increased trade and investment during a visit to the financial hub of Shanghai.

Cameron is leading Britain's largest trade mission to China, with more than 100 leaders from business, education, and cultural fields, along with six government ministers.

During his time in Beijing, Cameron oversaw the signing of agreements in areas including space exploration and football training, and voiced support for a deal to free up trade between China and the European Union, China's largest trading partner. Such a deal could be worth up to 1.8 billion British pounds (US$2.95 billion) a year to the British economy, the UK government says.

The Global Times also took Cameron to task for comments backing expanded democracy in former British colony Hong Kong, and said Britain is colluding with France and Germany to provoke China over the Dalai Lama. Cameron's visit was originally scheduled for last year, but was postponed by China after he met with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, who is reviled by Beijing.

"We've discovered that Britain is easily replaceable in China's European foreign policy," said the editorial in the newspaper's Chinese edition. "Moreover, Britain is no longer any kind of big country, but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams."

China would respond in kind to all perceived diplomatic slights, the editorial said, adding that "in conclusion, we wish Prime Minister Cameron and his delegation a pleasant visit to China."

The editorial's sneering tone was typical of the strain of belligerent nationalism identified with the newspaper, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily. A similar editorial in the newspaper's English edition called Britain "just an old European country apt for travel and study."

Following talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping, Cameron flew to Shanghai on Monday night for further meetings and to speak at a university. His trip is to conclude Wednesday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

The trade deals signed had been in the works for months or years, and British business and Cameron's government had been anxious to finalize them. That was partly because of concerns that Britain was being less active in courting business with the world's second largest economy than rivals France and Germany.

Cameron's schedule underwent a number of last-minute changes and an expected news conference in Beijing was scrapped.

There were few signs of lingering political tensions, although Cameron's staff protested the exclusion from an event Monday at the Great Hall of the People of a British reporter for the US financial news agency Bloomberg, which has fallen afoul of Beijing over some of its reporting.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the reporter, Rob Hutton, had been excluded in order to give priority to journalists from China and Britain.

The post As Cameron Visits, China Paper Criticizes Britain appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine.

Source: Irrawaddy.org

[Scott]

Moved to World News.

[Credo]

Wow, nothing like insulting the hell out of a guest.

The assessment might be correct, but it's not very nice.

[johna]

Pretty accurate assessment of Britain by the Chinese newspaper.

[jackr]

^^ Lemme guess, stateside?

Nice way to sum up a country that has benefited the world more so than any other. And what is China worthy of other than to flood the world with more junk, annoy/threaten everyone off and churn out another billion lemmings?

[Credo]

Nah, he's not American, he's just as anti-American. Probably just a troll. Difficult to know.

China is adding more than junk to the world. It's way up there with the amount of pollution it's adding to the air and water.

[Publicus]

The discourtesy of the CCP is derived exactly from their flawed and simplistic point of view, based in communist ideology and on Chinese ethnocentrism, that history is nothing more than the rise and fall of empires and that it's the turn of the CCP-PRC to inevitably rise, and that the West is in inevitable and irreversible decline.

The dictators in Beijing see their 5000 year history as the Middle Kingdom as severely disrupted by the British during the 19th century - China's "Century of Shame" - and that now it's payback time, time to begin to settle old scores.

The 'score settling', is a CCP-PRC malady which has only just begun, as we see in the instance of Japan. The 'score settling' attitude and agenda in Beijing comes from the mindset of the CCP-PRC that is rooted in the self-pitying view that the Middle Kingdom is an innocent victim of the predatory capitalist West.

The CCP-PRC is thus ideologically and culturally irredentist, and is bloated by a nationalist revanchism rooted in its 5000 year old culture of dictatorship. Dictatorship is an ancient, certainly pre-modern form of government that is both reactionary and dangerous. .

The CCP's impertinence and impudence and its baseless arrogance are revealing. The fascist CCP-PRC dictatorship therefore has nothing positive to offer the contemporary world.

[folium]

The fascist CCP-PRC dictatorship therefore has nothing positive to offer the contemporary world.

Do you mean the Chinese government or China as a whole?

[boomerangutang]

The caption of the OP photo states, in part; "...stands before a painting..."

That looks like an inlay artwork, not a painting, and it's beautiful. I'd like to get one like that in my living room.

In reference to HK: according to signed treaties from 100 years prior to the hand-over, UK didn't have to hand back the most important parts of HK. One treaty stated that all territory south of Boundary Street shall be part of the UK 'In perpetuity.' The Iron Lady went soft on that. She could have hung tough, and HK would still be legally part of the Commonwealth. Anyone who wants to see an e-book on that topic, can PM me.

[Scott]

I believe that part of her thinking on the HK issue was that without the New Territories, Hong Kong really wouldn't survive and prosper.

Instead of all the criticism, the Chinese gov't could issue a belated "Thank you."

[boomerangutang]

I believe that part of her thinking on the HK issue was that without the New Territories, Hong Kong really wouldn't survive and prosper.

Instead of all the criticism, the Chinese gov't could issue a belated "Thank you."

I believe HK would be better off if it had not been given to China. As for infrastructure, do you think they couldn't manage to get potable water or deal with their garbage? Am not sure what reasons you'd put forth for them not being able to 'survive.' Just before HK became settled by white people, the British gov't laughed at the little rocky place inhabited by 200 black-clad fishermen. Look what it became in the ensuing decades. Even remote islands at sea, can manage to find water and other essentials. As for defense, they've got the weight of the US and the UK to stand beside them. That's some pretty powerful friends. But alas, it's just a pipe dream now, as there's no turning back the hand-over.

[Scott]

That was her thinking, not mine.

But even Lantau Island and the new airport are in what was the New Territories, so the place would have been fairly limited in size.

Hey, if it would have been up to me, I'd have given it to Taiwan, that would have been an interesting turn of events!

(And yes, I am joking).

[JoeThePoster]

"We've discovered that Britain is easily replaceable in China's European foreign policy," said the editorial in the newspaper's Chinese edition. "Moreover, Britain is no longer any kind of big country, but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams."

Should be sign posted at arrivals area of every entry port worldwide, yes.

[Publicus]

New York and London are the two leading financial centers of the world.

Hong Kong remains well ahead of Shanghai as a global financial center - Shanghai needs another 200,000 financial experts to even begin to compete with New York, London, or Hong Kong.

The Boyz in Beijing who wrote the editorial have wanted Shanghai to become the leading financial center of East Asia and, of course, eventually the world. It ain't happening.

Imagine another 200,000 more experts of CCP economics and finance running amok in Shanghai.

Good on Britain for its footballers because anyone who's spent any appreciable time living and working in the CCP-PRC can tell you the Chinese are pathetic athletes. They're non-athletes. Mass popular sports are unknown in the People's Republic, as are school sports or community leagues..

Britain is home to the Mother of Parliaments and has given the world the Westminster Model of the parliamentary system that the new dynasty of dictators in Beijing hate, detest, despise, reject outright.

The CCP doesn't have the brains to recognize good from bad or reality from ideological fantasy. Whether it's a communist dictatorship thing, a 5000 year old Chinese dictator thing, or a communist Chinese dictator thing remains an open question to some.

We do know the UK is a global leader in education while the CCP-PRC is the more than dubious exemplar of indoctrination, censorship, the mass party line.

[davehowden]

"Moreover, Britain is no longer any kind of big country, but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams."

and Rolls-Royce engines for your aeroplanes??

[Scott]

Off-topic posts have been deleted. Please respond to the OP. It not necessary to respond to everything that other posters say.

The OP, by the way, is about some rather sharp remarks made about the UK and Mr. Cameron's visit.

[folium]

Global Times is a frothing, populist comic printed in tabloid format and operates in a way similar to the Sun and, a little less so, the Daily Mail in the UK.

It would be interesting to see which countries don't get a rough ride from GT.

Re financial centres probably the most regarded index nowadays is the GFCI. London, NYC and HK hold the top 3 slots in almost every category. While Shanghai is a distant rival at present, complacency and hubris need to be avoided, and both Shanghai and even Shenzen continue their steady climb up the index. Where they top out will be interesting.

http://www.longfinance.net/images/GFCI14_30Sept2013.pdf

The UK's education system is hardly a global leader, sadly, as the recent PISA survey highlighted, it is very much mid-table. The Asian model of education as that survey shows means that Shanghai, S. Korea, Singapore etc lead the pack. Now whether or not this is the best form of education is another matter, but no western country comes close.

What the UK is very good at in education as in finance, engineering, healthcare, even the military is the very top end, value-added sections of their respective markets.

The UK, which really means London and the SE has attracted global talent to create centres of excellence.

In the sports arena, medals tables tell much about national prowess and areas of focus. The joke about UK medals is how many of them come in sports where you are in a sitting position (sailing, rowing, cycling, equestrian). Our top football teams are largely made up of foreign imported talent and the national football team will probably struggle in next year's World Cup.

The UK has come a long way from being a global superpower 100 years ago, something that as a nation we have still not fully come to terms with. The piece in GT while churlish is not wholly inaccurate.

[LawrenceChee]

UK is a spent force and deservedly now they understand that it is important to court for business like what every nation has to do if you want trade.

I love how free speech is protected in the west and how everyone's opinion is vaulted even the racist ones are tolerated until the truth hits....it's one of the areas China needs to learn to do better and it's great to see the Chinese press finally slamming the west as they deserve as it has been one sided so far in the world arena where only China gets battered and everyone face value has to be preserved.

I hope to see sharper critics on the editorial front in what the west needs improving. After all free speech is only quantified and respected if it goes both ways and views are not censored to tolerate only one side of the stories...

[simple1]

UK is a spent force and deservedly now they understand that it is important to court for business like what every nation has to do if you want trade.

I love how free speech is protected in the west and how everyone's opinion is vaulted even the racist ones are tolerated until the truth hits....it's one of the areas China needs to learn to do better and it's great to see the Chinese press finally slamming the west as they deserve as it has been one sided so far in the world arena where only China gets battered and everyone face value has to be preserved.

I hope to see sharper critics on the editorial front in what the west needs improving. After all free speech is only quantified and respected if it goes both ways and views are not censored to tolerate only one side of the stories...

Hardly a spent force.

UK has the worlds 6th largest economy, not bad considering it was nearly financially ruined as a result of WW11 and just about had to rebuild on it's own.

4 of the top 20 universities in the world, 3 of which are ranked in the top ten for medicine, very good considering the size of population.

6th worldwide for patents registered

6th most powerful country worldwide

[Credo]

Thanks Simple. I might add that England also knows how to be diplomatic and would probably refrain from such gutter-reporting if a Chinese diplomat were to visit even though they could. England has Freedom of Speech. China doesn't, unless you are saying something bad about the West.

[osiboy]

Global Times is a frothing, populist comic printed in tabloid format and operates in a way similar to the Sun and, a little less so, the Daily Mail in the UK.

It would be interesting to see which countries don't get a rough ride from GT.

Re financial centres probably the most regarded index nowadays is the GFCI. London, NYC and HK hold the top 3 slots in almost every category. While Shanghai is a distant rival at present, complacency and hubris need to be avoided, and both Shanghai and even Shenzen continue their steady climb up the index. Where they top out will be interesting.

http://www.longfinance.net/images/GFCI14_30Sept2013.pdf

The UK's education system is hardly a global leader, sadly, as the recent PISA survey highlighted, it is very much mid-table. The Asian model of education as that survey shows means that Shanghai, S. Korea, Singapore etc lead the pack. Now whether or not this is the best form of education is another matter, but no western country comes close.

What the UK is very good at in education as in finance, engineering, healthcare, even the military is the very top end, value-added sections of their respective markets.

The UK, which really means London and the SE has attracted global talent to create centres of excellence.

In the sports arena, medals tables tell much about national prowess and areas of focus. The joke about UK medals is how many of them come in sports where you are in a sitting position (sailing, rowing, cycling, equestrian). Our top football teams are largely made up of foreign imported talent and the national football team will probably struggle in next year's World Cup.

The UK has come a long way from being a global superpower 100 years ago, something that as a nation we have still not fully come to terms with. The piece in GT while churlish is not wholly inaccurate.

The UK education system is a world leader , it still has world leading uni's , i know a recent study has shown schools in asia are showing better results but who wants their kids to learn useless information and false history by rote for 12-13hrs a day with so much pressure from the parents that they hve something like a 10x suicide rate ,.............AND THESE ARE JUST KIDS ! , What a future they look forward to , not many of these kids even feel loved or worthy of it , their rote system may produce good bankers ,accountants , businessman etc , but designers, artists , inventors , problem solving in general ,....FORGET IT , anything that involves thinking outside the box is beyond them , they are copiers as is the whole of SEA , it has been washed away from their brains by the communist system or poverty /greed .

As for the UK "which really means the SE & London" i bet there more than a million parents "asking <deleted> does this guy know " my kids are being held back from a decent education because the teachers that used to teach classes of 28 now have 35 in them and the teachers are expected to teach to estonian,polish, portuguese , russian ,african afghani ,indian, bangladesh , nigerian etc etc , .........many of them children of the centers of excellence you refer to no doubt .

Should the world follow the Chinese regarding human rights or even animal rights ,they are chocking the planet with their filthy power stations and heavy industry , they are the cruelest nation on the planet , they are to blame for the barbaric killing of most of the elephants and rhinos ATM , what other so called civilized ppl could cut the top of a live monkey to eat the brains while still warm as a special honour ?? ........MY GOD , how can anyone look up to these animals !

[Publicus]

Global Times is a frothing, populist comic printed in tabloid format and operates in a way similar to the Sun and, a little less so, the Daily Mail in the UK.

It would be interesting to see which countries don't get a rough ride from GT.

Re financial centres probably the most regarded index nowadays is the GFCI. London, NYC and HK hold the top 3 slots in almost every category. While Shanghai is a distant rival at present, complacency and hubris need to be avoided, and both Shanghai and even Shenzen continue their steady climb up the index. Where they top out will be interesting.

http://www.longfinance.net/images/GFCI14_30Sept2013.pdf

The UK's education system is hardly a global leader, sadly, as the recent PISA survey highlighted, it is very much mid-table. The Asian model of education as that survey shows means that Shanghai, S. Korea, Singapore etc lead the pack. Now whether or not this is the best form of education is another matter, but no western country comes close.

What the UK is very good at in education as in finance, engineering, healthcare, even the military is the very top end, value-added sections of their respective markets.

The UK, which really means London and the SE has attracted global talent to create centres of excellence.

In the sports arena, medals tables tell much about national prowess and areas of focus. The joke about UK medals is how many of them come in sports where you are in a sitting position (sailing, rowing, cycling, equestrian). Our top football teams are largely made up of foreign imported talent and the national football team will probably struggle in next year's World Cup.

The UK has come a long way from being a global superpower 100 years ago, something that as a nation we have still not fully come to terms with. The piece in GT while churlish is not wholly inaccurate.

The UK education system is a world leader , it still has world leading uni's , i know a recent study has shown schools in asia are showing better results but who wants their kids to learn useless information and false history by rote for 12-13hrs a day with so much pressure from the parents that they hve something like a 10x suicide rate ,.............AND THESE ARE JUST KIDS ! , What a future they look forward to , not many of these kids even feel loved or worthy of it , their rote system may produce good bankers ,accountants , businessman etc , but designers, artists , inventors , problem solving in general ,....FORGET IT , anything that involves thinking outside the box is beyond them , they are copiers as is the whole of SEA , it has been washed away from their brains by the communist system or poverty /greed .

As for the UK "which really means the SE & London" i bet there more than a million parents "asking <deleted> does this guy know " my kids are being held back from a decent education because the teachers that used to teach classes of 28 now have 35 in them and the teachers are expected to teach to estonian,polish, portuguese , russian ,african afghani ,indian, bangladesh , nigerian etc etc , .........many of them children of the centers of excellence you refer to no doubt .

Should the world follow the Chinese regarding human rights or even animal rights ,they are chocking the planet with their filthy power stations and heavy industry , they are the cruelest nation on the planet , they are to blame for the barbaric killing of most of the elephants and rhinos ATM , what other so called civilized ppl could cut the top of a live monkey to eat the brains while still warm as a special honour ?? ........MY GOD , how can anyone look up to these animals !

So at long last we can see that I'm quite the temperate and reserved moderate around here.

Who knows who else lurks in the wings of TVF?

[Publicus]

UK is a spent force and deservedly now they understand that it is important to court for business like what every nation has to do if you want trade.

I love how free speech is protected in the west and how everyone's opinion is vaulted even the racist ones are tolerated until the truth hits....it's one of the areas China needs to learn to do better and it's great to see the Chinese press finally slamming the west as they deserve as it has been one sided so far in the world arena where only China gets battered and everyone face value has to be preserved.

I hope to see sharper critics on the editorial front in what the west needs improving. After all free speech is only quantified and respected if it goes both ways and views are not censored to tolerate only one side of the stories...

The CCP-PRC has no freedom of speech.

The fact is the CCP-PRC is a Marxist-Maoist-Leninist dictatorship that, in the 21st century is a censoring, punishing, elitist single party state and fascist dictatorship that detests democracy and human rights, and believes literally it has the inherent birthright to lord over all of the world irrespective of the rule of consensual international law.

[smooth expat]

US & UK should stop importing their cheap junk. Slap tarriffs on them. Then watch their economy crumble. Their power is based on nothing more than mercantilism.

[Credo]

Thanks Simple. I might add that England also knows how to be diplomatic and would probably refrain from such gutter-reporting if a Chinese diplomat were to visit even though they could. England has Freedom of Speech. China doesn't, unless you are saying something bad about the West.

No it doesn't...

Political correctness trumps freedom of speech in Blighty.

...said 'freedom' also is not enshrined in any laws akin to the American constitution.

I might be wrong on this one though.

And therein lies the difference between the UK and China. Even without a law or a constitution, they provide for freedom of speech.

[Publicus]

The markets know the economy of the CCP-PRC will be in a shambles by 2016 or perhaps 2017 as the US becomes virtually, if not literally, energy independent and the PRC has to pay very high prices for ME oil, to include the risks involved in receiving shipments of oil by sea.

The CCP recently connected some energy pipelines from Myanmar and from Russia, among others, but the preponderance of its energy supply will continue to come from the ME and at increasingly higher prices. So Beijing has to be careful of its conduct in the South China Sea, over which it has unilaterally and illegally declared sovereignty, ignoring the EEZs of Asean nations, not to mention the freedom of the high seas.

The United States Navy now has what's contemporarily called "Offshore Control" capabilities, i.e., the ability to blockade the CCP-PRC and to do so from a safe distance. So if the Boyz in Beijing get too aggressive against their neighbors and on the high seas against the 'declining cowards' of the United States, they're going to get burned.

The magical economic and financial "reform" session the CCP held last month already is being dismissed by the markets as a big belly flop. The CCP can't reform because reform means it will lose its power and position. Last month its now harmful export economy expanded instead of contracting as it should have done in favor of initiating more of a domestic predicate to its economy.

In other words, the CCP ship of state is not responding at all.

The CCP has been reduced to rearranging the deck chairs and paying off the cadre of officers in charge of the small number of lifeboats to escape in.

[Scott]

Just a couple of questions/observations. First, as the US gets closer to energy independence, is it anticipated that world prices will drop or will continued rising demand mean continuing higher prices?

Does China have a strategic oil reserve?

[Publicus]

Just a couple of questions/observations. First, as the US gets closer to energy independence, is it anticipated that world prices will drop or will continued rising demand mean continuing higher prices?

Does China have a strategic oil reserve?

Er, I'm no energy expert and I'm only an honorary sub-expert 3rd class anyway, but the International Energy Agency says that regardless of US energy independence, renewable energy growth, energy efficiencies etc the emerging economies such as the CCP-PRC will continue to stoke demand, which will keep prices floating higher.

Experts vary by a buck or two here and there as to the exact level of price, but agreement is broad that energy prices will only increase in both the short and the long term. They're talking $108 pb as the norm fairly soon.

The US is expected to be energy independent by 2018 while also becoming a greater exporter of energy than Saudi Arabia. This will help to substantially alleviate the huge US balance of payments - current account - deficits that only the US can sustain because it has the global currency.

The PRC meanwhile is expected to remain the number two consumer of energy but will continue to have to import the vast preponderance of it, either by pipeline or by sea - most of it by sea. This reality is already expensive and will only become more expensive.

The PRC runs a trade deficit with just about everyone - to include Asean - except the United States. Its trade surplus against the US more than offsets the deficit with just about everyone else.

This over-reliance on exports to the US is however obstructing economic reform in the PRC, because the needed reduction in exports in favor of domestic consumption would put the CCP into a severe current account crunch, hence the CCP's $3.5 trillion in forex reserves (of which $1.2tn is in actual USDollars). A current account overall deficit would severely impact the RMB, which the CCP will avoid to the bitter end.

The CCP has been building a strategic oil reserve but is far from its goal of a 30-day emergency supply, while the US pretty much maintains a relatively constant 90-day supply. The CCP presently has 270 million barrels in its strategic reserve, the US 727 million. The CCP's goal is 500 million barrels by 2020, which looks increasingly unlikely given the sharply upward trend in prices projected forward.

Any US Naval "offshore control" (blockade from a safe distance) of a rampaging CCP-PRC in the South China Sea or elsewhere would quickly turn the PRC into a basket case as the CCP would order rationing and most of the economy would anyway be forced to shut down.

Another complication to the Boyz in Beijing is that the PRC has lost so much arable land to urban development or pollution that it has to import food from other countries, notably the US.

The CCP maintains a pork reserve, pork being the PRChinese meat staple, but it's useful only to control pork prices in general or to counter bouts of inflation. The pork reserve would be quickly gone in the event of US Naval offshore control.

The US two months ago asked the CCP to join together to better control releases of each country's strategic reserve in order to more effectively manage fluctuations in global energy prices, but the CCP considers it doesn't have enough of a reserve yet to "play" with, and it isn't in much of a cooperative mood lately anyway.

I'll write the long answer another time.

.

[NeverSure]

Just a couple of questions/observations. First, as the US gets closer to energy independence, is it anticipated that world prices will drop or will continued rising demand mean continuing higher prices?

Does China have a strategic oil reserve?

It could but won't necessarily. A problem in the US is refining capacity, shut down or stymied by environmentalists. This means that the US will become the largest exporter of crude oil, but still an importer of refined oil. This is a shame because of the loss of potential really good jobs in the US in the refining industry. Pipelines are being run to ports to load the crude oil and to unload the refined products. What a waste of transportation costs and US jobs.

The oil market is a global market and just because it's pumped from the ground in the US doesn't mean it will be used in the US. After all this oil belongs to private industry. Still, it should help with world prices - more supply.

The US is finding and pumping so much oil that having to pay to have it refined will still result in the US being energy independent. The exports are already shifting the balance of payments. It's all money coming into the country.

While it appears that China has about 1/3 the oil reserves that the US does, China has to buy it and with a population about 4 times what the US has, that boils down to a very small reserve per capita with any increase having to come out of China's pocket as it imports it.

The US would be in financial party mood if it would free up the government owned natural resources - coal, steel, timber, rare earth minerals, oil, etc. etc. and use those to create jobs and international competition. Big party. The US is far from broke.

[LawrenceChee]

USA is hardly a broke country by any means ..however it is stopped in its progress by party politics and interest groups that cannot see beyond what's important to them.

The Chinese would eventually have to stop making junk that is ordered by their western clients...that I support...the pollution I saw in Beijing last month was horrid and a reminder that the west are destroying China's environment while protecting their own turf...

About time this type of manufacturing is sent back to the USA and they can re-start jobs, local economy ...i seen enough part- time / seasonal packers in amazon warehouses to know these jobs are still needed and wanted by the american people to feed their families and pay their bills.

So it would be good to send those back to local manufacturing.