In a speech at elite Peking University, Cameron said China’s abandoning of Marxist economics had been a positive force both inside and outside the country, and said he hoped in time that would lead to greater political openness.
However, excerpts 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.
“The rise in economic freedom in China in recent years has been hugely beneficial to China and to the world,” Cameron said.
“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.
No specific issues were mentioned.
While Cameron’s trip has gone outwardly smoothly, it was revealed Tuesday that Chinese diplomats objected to the wearing of Remembrance Day poppies by Cameron and members of his delegation during their meetings in Beijing.
The diplomats stated the poppies would be offensive because they are a reminder of the 19th century Opium Wars in which British forces defeated Chinese troops on their own soil, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The British side told the Chinese the poppies were an important way of honoring the armed forces, veterans, and the fallen, the official said.
“We informed them that they mean a great deal to us and we would be wearing them all the same,” he said.
The wearing of poppies is a decades old tradition and is not known to be considered offensive in China. Remembrance Day, Britain’s annual commemoration for the country’s war dead, is Thursday.
It wasn’t clear what effect, if any, Cameron’s comments on political reform would have. China last dallied with the idea of tinkering with the authoritarian one-party system in the early years after the adoption of economic reforms three decades ago. Such debates were stopped cold by the bloody 1989 suppression of pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
In recent months, however, Premier Wen Jiabao, with whom Cameron met on Tuesday, has revived that discussion to a degree with calls for unspecified reforms to shore up economic gains. At the same time, the government has taken a renewed hard-line stance against dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo, who put forward concrete proposals challenging the party’s absolute control.
About the time Cameron flew into Beijing on Tuesday, airport police blocked renowned Chinese human rights lawyer Mo Xiaoping, whose firm is representing Liu, from boarding a flight Tuesday to attend a conference in London.
Cameron’s visit is also the first by a British leader since China executed a 53-year-old British man, Akmal Shaikh, for drug-smuggling in December, despite an official appeal on his behalf from London.
The execution drew condemnation from British politicians and rights groups who argued Shaikh was delusional and had unwittingly been exploited by criminals.
Pro-Tibet groups have also lobbied Cameron to speak out over repressive Chinese rule in the Himalayan territory.
