Chinese President Hu Jintao met Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday as business leaders signed $1.3 billion in contracts and human rights protesters demonstrated outside Blair’s office.
Hu is in Britain on a three-day state visit. Blair’s spokesman had said the meeting would focus on trade, climate change, international security, poverty reduction and immigration.
The leaders looked on as executives from companies including Lloyd’s of London, Airbus and Rolls Royce signed contracts worth more than a billion dollars with Chinese firms.
Outside, hundreds of protesters urged Blair to make a public statement on Chinese human rights abuses.
Demonstrators from the Free Tibet Campaign and the Falun Gong spiritual sect displayed flags and banners while about 50 Hu supporters banged drums and waved the Chinese flag.
“Our specific message to Tony Blair is for him to ask Hu Jintao to meet the Dalai Lama,” said Alison Reynolds of the Free Tibet Campaign. “We are raising a whole series of other issues as well, such as the treatment of political prisoners and media freedom around the Olympic Games. What we would like to see is Tony Blair making a public statement of concern over these issues.”
Blair’s spokesman has said the prime minister would discuss human rights with Hu privately but did not think “grandstanding” was a good idea.
Hu was feted at a state dinner at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday night. He was scheduled to open a Chinese art and history exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts later Wednesday.
