LONDON – Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, nearing the end of his European tour, was set to hold talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair against a backdrop of protests over Tibet.
Wen, who has been paying his first visit to Europe since taking office in March 2003, arrived Sunday, and his trip is expected to see the finalising of trade and investment contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
Some 150 protesters rallied outside the Chinese embassy in London overnight Sunday, waving Tibetan flags in a protest at Wen’s visit, his first to Britain as China’s head of government.
“Tony Blair should be at the forefront of holding dialogue with China about Tibet,” said Alison Reynolds, director of the Free Tibet campaign, during the protest.
She added that Wen “should have the courage to push further with the fledgling dialogue between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government”.
Iraq was certain to be high on the agenda for Blair and Wen, given that Britain and China are both permanent members of the UN Security Council, where a fresh resolution on postwar Iraq is in the making.
But their talks could hit rough water on the subjects of human rights, Tibet and the former British colony of Hong Kong, where Beijing last month ruled out the introduction of full democracy in 2007.
“We have got our differences, but this is a mature relationship we have with the Chinese government and we can have a dialogue about this,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said ahead of Wen’s arrival.
For Blair, who visited China last year, the talks will be overshadowed by a rising furore over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by US and British forces occupying Iraq.
The Tibet Society in London is urging Blair — who visited Beijing and Hong Kong last July — to meet the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, when he comes to the capital on May 28.
Beijing sees the Dalai Lama as a separatist, and strongly protests any meeting that he has with a foreign leader — most recently, with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Ottawa last month.
Besides Blair, Wen is to meet Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, International Development Secretary Hilary Benn and Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt.
Straw will also meet separately with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing.
After his London stay, Wen is to proceed to Ireland — which currently holds the rotating EU presidency — to conclude an 11-day tour of five European states, accompanied by an 80-strong economic delegation.
His trip began May 3 in Berlin, and later took him to Brussels for talks with EU officials, then Rome.
In the Italian capital on Friday, Wen extended an olive branch to Western industrialists, saying China’s rapid growth poses no threat to their production.
The attractiveness of China’s vast market for investors dominated the start of Wen’s visit to Rome as he addressed Italian industrialists with Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
In Brussels, the Chinese premier urged the 25-nation European Union to lift restrictions on arms and technology exports to China and to recognise his country as “a fully functioning market economy”.
Wen said China was keen to work with Europe on space and nuclear research, underlining his country’s interest in gaining access to cutting-edge European technology.
China’s access to such research would be transformed by a resumption of European arms sales, which were suspended after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
