Cameron urges Chinese political reform

FE Team | Published: November 11, 2010 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

BEIJING, Nov 10 (AP): British Prime Minister David Cameron urged China Wednesday to embrace political reform as the best way to ensure social stability and continued economic growth.
In a speech at elite Peking University, Cameron said China's junking of Marxist economics had been a positive force both inside and outside the country and said he hoped that in time that would lead to greater political openness.
However, extracts of his speech released by his office made no direct reference to specific cases of political repression, such as the 11-year prison sentence handed down to this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.
"I hope that in time this will lead to a greater political opening ... because I am convinced that the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together," he said.
Cameron's speech comes on the second and final day of a visit focused overwhelmingly on boosting business ties as part of the prime minister's stated aim of doubling bilateral trade by 2015 to more than $100 billion, including $30 billion per year in British exports.
Cameron reiterated his determination to boost those ties, saying, "Free trade is in our DNA. And we want trade with China. As much of it as we can get."
Among the contracts signed so far is a $1.2 billion deal for jet engine maker Rolls-Royce to provide engines for 16 A330 jets operated by China Eastern Airlines.
Cameron is being accompanied by four Cabinet ministers and about 50 business leaders - the largest official British delegation to visit the country in modern history.
Earlier in the day, Cameron met with Chinese president and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao, who told him China looked for more opportunities for cooperation with Britain on global issues and wanted to "raise the level of mutual political trust" while handling "sensitive issues in bilateral relations in an appropriate way," according to the official Xinhua News Agency.