By Li Hongmei
British Prime Minister David Cameron (C) communicates with children at Longjiang Road Primary School in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dec. 4, 2013. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)
The British prime minister David Cameron has just wrapped up his three-day visit to China, harvesting not merely business deals but also applause from the Chinese public.
Cameron met Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, China's leading e-commerce operator, for a closed-door meeting on Dec. 3 in Shanghai, highlighting the possibility that more UK products will enter China's online market, which has become the world's largest virtual marketplace, reports the Chinese-language International Finance News.
During the meeting, Cameron and Ma jointly witnessed the inking of a memorandum of cooperation between UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and the Alibaba Group, calling for the introduction of UK products to Chinese consumers via the latter's e-commerce websites.
The contract aims to further expand the presence of UK products on Alibaba's two main online platforms - Tmall and Taobao. The sites will accommodate British companies selling products such as tea and chinaware, as well as footwear brands Speedo and Lacoste, both under Pentland, the largest footwear group in the UK.
Cameron also introduced the chief executive officer of the London Stock Exchange to Ma, who later spoke with the Alibaba chairman and co-founder for 10 minutes.
The visit to China has turned out to be a fruitful trip for Cameron, who witnessed the inking of other cooperative contracts, including a 4.5 billion pounds (US$7.4 billion) contract for British car maker Land Rover, a cooperative agreement between the Premier League and China Super League, a UK-China cultural agreement, and a UK-China medical cooperative agreement, worth 120 million pounds (US$196 million).
"Under the medical cooperative agreement, UK medical firms will export their technologies to China and invest in the Chinese medical industry, to tap the huge Chinese market which will top US$400 billion in scale by 2017. It will form a new partnership, which will benefit both nations," remarked Jeremy Hunt, the British health minister.
The aforementioned soccer agreement is seen as valuable for the Premier League, as China is at the core of the Asian market which now generates an annual 200 million pounds (US$327.6 million) of revenue for the league.
It has become common practice for foreign dignitaries visiting China to taste local cuisine, take a high-speed rail ride and speak a selection of pre-coached Mandarin sentences, all to woo the Chinese public.
David Cameron is no exception. For instance, he expressed the hope that he would be able to try out the country's new high-speed rail network and see if he could handle the famously fiery Sichuan-style hot pot.
He won applause as he outlined plans for same-day visas for business visits to the UK and later tried his hand at speaking Mandarin.
Such move can earn a favorable impression from China's public, says Yu Jun, a professor at the China National School of Administration in Beijing.
