Voulez-vous jouer au ping pong monsieur le Président?

When Cameron arrived in Tokyo yesterday, there was celebration at Nissan's investment in north-east England, a rare success for the Tories “oop north”. Historic arms deals have been signed (you might know ...it’s all the UK has to sell). And the gift from Botox Boy to the Japanese Prime Minister was a British-made bike. 

Does anyone know why we have to go through this ridiculous handing out of gifts? It Camermug has enough money to buy presents, he might try buying them for some poor British people instead of rich Japanese ones. I mean some unemployed working class person could have got on that bike and gone to look for work in t'south! (While we are on the subject, it seems that the ping pong table that the fool gave to Obama was made in France. C’était, en effet, une table de tennis  française. What an ass!

Anyway... I digress.

UK trade with Asia is tiny and exports to China are just over 2% percent of the total. (Why would they want stuff from us when they can make it themselves?) So when they brag that the Prime Minister visits to other countries makes trade leap with them by 20%, that means in the case of China a rise of 0.4%. Big deal!

However, on this occasion, there will be no leap in exports to China and no photographs with the world’s second most powerful man...because David Cameron isn’t invited. He wanted to go to China; he asked Beijing if he could, but apparently the Chinese said ‘bu shi’, or ’no’. The Beijing authorities were quite angry over the lecture on human rights abuses which Cameron delivered on his last visit, and which will have made absolutely no difference at all to human rights, but which may well have cost a lot of UK jobs.

We do business with Saudi Arabia and many other Middle and Near East countries, which have appalling human rights. We do business with Asian countries and African countries which certainly don’t allow their populations the kind of freedoms that Europeans enjoy. But we simply cannot go around telling everyone in the world how to behave. And if we do we should expect them not to like us, and therefore not to do business with us.

 

I’ve always said, if you are prepared to back up your lectures with actions, fair enough. If not, shut up.

The visit by the Dalai Lama to the UK  in June has also annoyed the Chinese leadership. This is bad news for Scotland, as the First Minister is scheduled to meet His Holiness during his visit to Scotland. It’s only polite as Queen Bess would say.

 But the Irish are reported to be happy because the Taoiseach Enda Kenny recently welcomed Xi Jinping, - the Chinese president-in-waiting - to Ireland. Furthermore, Mr Kenny was a guest of honour Beijing a couple of weeks ago. The UK has always considered itself a gateway to the EU for the Chinese, but it could be that Ireland will replace them as the route into what is after all, the world's largest marketplace. Could be that Cameron has blown it with the Chinese.

Pics: (1) Cameron indicating how much good his jolly to the Far East will do, but he may be able to pick up some more of that cheap Botox substitute and Beeswax to do his forehead. (2) The Chinese and American Presidents. (Cameron was washing the president's plane down at the time) (3) HH The Dalai Lama. He'll need to wrap up warmer than that if he's coming to Edinburgh. These winds can be gie cald in June month!

PS...Doesn't Michelle Obama scrub up well?