Even though it took place more than a year ago, the repercussions of the meeting between the Dalai Lama and David Cameron are still being felt. In 2012, the UK Prime Minister met with the Tibetan spiritual leader. In the last few years there has been progress with China UK relations, resulting in a deepened mutually beneficial cooperation.
During the meeting between David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the Dalai Lama, the bilateral ties between China UK were “strained.” Thereafter, the government of China called for a public apology and on the UK to “take concrete actions” to repair the two countries’ strained relationships.
Hugo Swire, British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) State Minister does not believe the UK has anything to apologize for vis-à-vis the PM’s meeting with the Dalai Lama. But clearly China does not feel the same. Indeed, so disappointed has the eastern superpower been at the UK’s behavior that a few months ago it forced Cameron to cancel his trip to China. It is now hoped that next month this trip will be rescheduled in an effort to promote China UK relations vis-à-vis Chinese investment in the UK’s infrastructure projects.
But these UK-China issues are not solely about what happened in 2012. According to Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, “there is a bit of a British attitude which treats China as a sort of sweat shop on the Pearl river. One of the things I am trying to do this week in China is to change British attitudes to China. This is a country that is right at the forefront of medicine and hi-tech and computing and hi-tech engineering.” With this in mind he is thus taking a five-strong ministerial delegation to China in an effort to make way for an official visit by Cameron who’s not been there for three years.