Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao to visit Longbridge on 26/06/2011

"Wen has a background in engineering and holds a post-graduate degree from the Beijing Institute of Geology. He studied geomechanics in Beijing."

"Wen is said to have an introverted personality. He has stated that his one regret so far in life was "Never having learned to drive a manual car." Wen is known for his adept use of Chinese poetry to convey political and diplomatic messages, to respond to journalists, or simply to begin a speech."

"Wen has been dubbed "the people's premier" by both domestic and foreign media. Wen's domestic agenda marked a considerable shift from the previous administration. Instead of concentrating on GDP growth in large cities and rich coastal areas, Wen advocated for a more balanced approach in developing China's hinterland regions, and advancing policies considered more favourable towards farmers and migrant workers."

Windy wrote:Bad link Pat, but here are some more:

Mike Whitby must be pleased to have such a high status visit, he even has priority over No. 10
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/06/22/china-s-prime-minister-wen-jiabao-to-visit-mg-motor-plant-at-longbridge-97319-28921261/

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-06/17/c_13936249.htm

CHINA’S prime minister Wen Jiabao will tour Birmingham’s MG Rover plant this Sunday during his official visit to the UK.

The indelible stamp of "Made in China" has made an impressive mark on world trade, but this country's ambitions are proving to be much higher.

No longer content to be known for their cut-price efficiency in stuffing Disney toys, Chinese companies now want to own high-end global brands and be at the forefront of major technological projects

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's latest visit shows, China is pushing hard for a much bigger foothold in Europe.

His trip may be set against the backdrop of the European debt crisis but the region still has a huge amount to offer to the Chinese.

Europe's markets are mature, full of established brands but ripe with investment opportunities and in the UK in particular, Chinese companies have been fast to realise their potential.

According to consultants Dealogic, Chinese firms have acquired stakes in 33 UK companies since 2008, acquisitions totalling almost £12bn.

They include mining, logistics and financial services companies.

A visit to the MG plant at Longbridge in Birmingham is at the top of Wen Jiabao's itinerary in the UK.

The car factory is now part of the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), an investment which has revived the city's motor manufacturing industry and given SAIC an established brand in return.
Educated labour market

But buying well-known names is only part of the strategy.

Mr Wen's administration has also hinted that China is keen on helping build the controversial high speed rail link between London and the north of England.

China's interest in such projects does not come as a surprise to Dr Karl Gerth from Oxford University, who has been researching how social changes in China are pushing global growth.

''China is becoming less and less competitive in manufacturing, those same jobs are moving to Vietnam and other places," he says.

"At the same time there are millions of unemployed, college educated Chinese looking for work, who don't want to work in factories; they want technically sophisticated jobs.

"In order to employ all those people the Chinese economy needs to move up the value chain and start participating in higher-end industries.''

Buying into established brands and pitching for large infrastructure projects abroad is seen as key to providing that upwards trajectory the Chinese economy needs to take.

And with Premier Wen working hard on the diplomatic front and his country sitting on a vast surplus of cash, it is likely that the number of Chinese European tie-ups will escalate.

patpending wrote:And who's that with the Rainbow Tie of Diversity? Mike Whitby?

Shakespeare, torchbearer for the Chinese way of doing things

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao thinks the Bard is the world's greatest writer. Well, he would, says Boris Johnson.


Odds bodkins, zounds and strike me pinke. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has just been to Stratford-upon-Avon and paid this little old country of ours the most terrific compliment.


Our economic growth may be only a tenth of Chinese growth rates; our tax rates may now – absurdly – be higher. We may have spent the past three years scratching our heads about how to replace the third runway at Heathrow while the Chinese have built literally 45 airports over the same period. The Chinese may be set fair to be the economic and political powerhouse of the 21st century, and I wouldn't be surprised if they again mop up more gold medals than anyone else at the Olympic Games; and yet Mr Wen has been to watch Hamlet and declared that we can still claim to be the birthplace of "the greatest writer who ever lived".


Isn't that grand? It is, of course, a huge tribute to Mr Wen that he can follow Hamlet as Shakespeare wrote it, picking it all up off the bat in a way that most GCSE English students would struggle to imitate. It is worth asking how many UK politicians could go to China and say anything remotely convincing about, say, Ming poetry. The only one I can think of is the great George Walden, father of this page's Celia, and until George is recalled to the front bench I am afraid Parliament will always look pathetically ignorant.


Among my resolutions is to follow the younger generation and learn Mandarin. But if Mr Wen gets full marks for cultural diplomacy, the real tribute is, of course, to William Shakespeare. Never mind that he died almost 400 years ago. He is our greatest cultural export. He is our answer to Beethoven and Michelangelo, and a pretty effective retort he is, too.


He went global while he was still alive, carried overseas by Elizabethan merchant adventurers. The play Mr Wen has just watched was first performed in Indonesia, would you believe it, in 1609. In the decade after he died Shakespeare was performed in Germany, in German, by a group of travelling players. He has been big in China for at least 120 years, being known first as Shashibiya and then just as Sha Weng – "Old Man Sha".

His popularity survived the revolution to the point where it is acceptable for a communist leader to hail Shakespeare, not as a bourgeois reactionary, not as an imperialist capitalist running dog, but as the greatest writer who ever lived. When you stop to think about Shakespeare's prevailing ideology, it is easy to see why.

Think of Shakespeare's political context, the Elizabethan age. This was the era when England was the world's boom nation. The Armada had been thrashed. English companies were forming and trading around the world. We were laying the foundations for the greatest commercial empire the world has ever seen; and yet of course it was also a time of domestic paranoia. There was no real political freedom – of course not, when there was always a risk that the Spanish would strike back, or that armies of secret Catholics would launch a Counter-Reformation, or that the Queen – a poor, weak woman – would be deposed by one of her charismatic earls. That was why Walsingham deployed his secret police. Authors and playwrights had to be very careful about what they said. If you offended the regime, it could be curtains. Thomas Kyd was tortured to death. Christopher Marlowe was probably bumped off by the secret service, in the course of that mysterious "brawl" in Deptford. Ben Jonson nearly had his ears and nose cut off.

Shakespeare himself played a very cool hand. He was, frankly, the poet of the established order. We don't want to go back to the tumult of the Wars of the Roses, is the nub of what he is saying in the histories. We want to stick with the Tudor settlement. You can see why his message might be agreeable to Beijing. Look at what happens to the family members who are so impudent and ungrateful as to depose the gerontocrat King Lear. They get their comeuppance, all right. No wonder King Lear has always struck a chord in Japan and China and other societies where old age is particularly reverenced.

Look at what happens to the putschist Macbeth or to the Gang of Eight conspirators who kill Julius Caesar. They all come to pretty unsavoury ends. And what is the theme of Hamlet, that work of cosmic genius that Mr Wen watched yesterday? Well, it is also about a constitutional outrage, in which the King is murdered by Claudius; and when the battle is over and the stage is strewn with bodies at the end of Act Five, Shakespeare takes care to leave the ruling party in power. Fortinbras takes over from Hamlet (and remember, we are laboriously told at the beginning that he has a good claim to the throne). Kent and Edgar take over from Lear. Macduff takes over from Duncan. Antony and Octavius take over from Caesar. Usurpers never prosper, unless, of course, like Bolingbroke, they take over from bad kings like Richard III.

Shakespeare did occasionally get into hot water himself. He was spoken to very severely when he obliged the Earl of Essex, on the eve of his abortive rebellion, by staging Richard II – a play about a king who is deposed. Such was the anxiety about any play depicting a regicide that you could not buy a copy of Julius Caesar for 24 years after it was first staged. But Shakespeare never really fell foul of the secret police. He was too fly for that. He ended his life quite rich, by the standards of the day, and that is hardly surprising when you think that his plays contained so much poetry, so many insights into the human heart – and such ingenious defences for keeping things as they are, and keeping the ruling party in power.

Yup: he was the greatest writer of all time, but he also knew how to cope with censorship, the secret police and the absence of anything that we would now call pluralist democracy. Which is why, I venture to say, it is very safe and correct to admire him in Beijing.

Mr Wen, who will meet Prime Minister David Cameron for talks on Monday, said: “The successful co-operation of the production of the MG6C and other MG vehicles is a symbol of the friendship between China and the UK.

“The co-operation model can be summed up as designed in the UK, manufactured in China and assembled in the UK. Through this process we have been able to make the most of China’s capital and markets, as well as the UK’s technology and managerial expertise.”

The Chinese premier said businesses would make more use of the corporation model – using British design, Chinese manufacturing and assembly by UK workers.

He also gave assurances to British business that there would be greater opportunities to sell more into China, adding there would be conditions to help.

“I believe the corporation model will not only help to generate local opportunities for jobs, but also help us address the trade imbalance.

“What I hope to see is that the two countries will open each others market to prospective countries.

“I think in future more Chinese investment should fit the local needs of the British side to be more specific. You may know China has strengths in manufacturing and infrastructure development.

“When we enjoy each other’s strengths, we will enjoy brighter prospects in our co-operation.”

patpending wrote:See also the eighth photo here:

http://www.anhourago.co.uk/show.aspx?l=8560120&d=501

Windy wrote:

patpending wrote:See also the eighth photo here:

http://www.anhourago.co.uk/show.aspx?l=8560120&d=501

And the 9th:


Wen Jiabao eats lunch with employees during his visit to the MG plant in Birmingham

patpending wrote:I note that bloke isn't trying to eat his fish and chips with chopsticks. His Mandarin must be good, though!