When the Coalition came about, the pro Europe to fix all UK, were doing more business in Ireland, than the emerging four so called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations, with close to 2.4 billion consumers.
For a UK that used to trade, and saw manufacturing fall from around 21% of our economy in 1997, to 11% in 2010, whether we stay in or leave the EU, it was important for government to lead trade missions to those countries, in order to play trade ‘catchup’ – especially as we are still running a larger budget deficit economy than most of our European competitors, and need as much inward investment (and the resulting jobs) as we can get.
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-16/u-k-speeds-chinese-visa-applications-to-welcome-li.html
Human Rights obviously come up, and the recent crackdowns on those looking to publicly remember Tiananmen Square 25-years ago shows that the Queen who only usually receives Heads of State, is NOT receiving a new Human Rights China, but one that on an ongoing basis, can seriously help us recover from the Great Recession.
Question; bearing in mind the recent TSquare clampdown and the repercussions from Cameron’s last PUBLIC mention of the HR issue, is it a case of beggars can’t be choosers, and we should be more wary and understand the importance of such trade/political relationships, especially if we end up leaving the EU (our largest trading partner) in 2017 - or not????