Tories in China

GEORGE Osborne and Boris Johnson have been scoring points against each other in China this week in the race to succeed Cameron after he loses the next election. The spectacle of two senior Tory politicians trying to upstage each other during a charm offensive in China may have bemused some of their Chinese audience but the news that People’s China will increase its already substantial investments in Britain can only be for the good.

Though the parallel delegations led by Chancellor George Osborne and London Mayor Boris Johnson were specifically focused on trade they joined forces in Beijing to mend fences with the Chinese government, angered at the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Cameron and Clegg last year, to pave the way for the Prime Minister to visit China in the near future.

Cameron has now formally said that the British government does not support Tibetan independence, ending a political standoff that soured all political and economic links with China for over a year. This has clearly dismayed the “human rights” gang who oppose the strengthening of ties with any socialist country and whose selective memory does not seem to stretch to the oil-rich slave states of Arabia, which Britain relies on for much of its energy.

The increasing number of Chinese students and tourists and the army of Russian businessmen who flaunt their wealth in London show that there is a world beyond the narrow confines of the United States and the European Union. But Chinese or Russian investments cannot restore the flagging UK economy.