Be very careful of what you wish for

Is she saying that she looks forward to the day that China sends troops to Europe?

If the 21st Century was to be truly an 'Asian Century', the region, and in particular China, would have to match its growing economic prowess with greater "global leadership", said Georgieva.

The US sent soldiers to Europe to fight the forces of Nazism, noted the Bulgarian official.

"But like 1941, we aspire for Asian leadership in global affairs. With wealth comes global responsibility. That would earn the place in history of the 'Asian Century'."

I am sure she isn't really, but then what is she saying? She is definitely encouraging for China (still a Communist dictatorship FFS) to start sending its troops round the world.

Trade or Business? Cameron in China

When Cameron talks of trade, he means business, as the terms of trade in a broader sense are out of his hands.

He is over in China, stuck on the horns of a conundrum. He wants to help British business in their dealings with the Chinese, but is powerless to do so. This is for the simple reason that Britain no longer has the ability to make trade deals. 

Those rights, that power lies exclusively with those friendly chaps in Brussels. 

So when he talks of

David Cameron today declared his ambition to double bilateral trade between the UK and China to 100 billion US dollars a year by 2015, as he arrived at the head of Britain's largest ever Government and business delegation to the Far Eastern country.

Mr Cameron said he expected deals worth billions of pounds to the UK economy to be sealed during his two-day visit, which will feature intensive trade talks.

While he accepted that the balance of trade will remain firmly in China's favour in the coming years, he set a target of achieving 30 billion dollars' worth of UK exports within the next five years - up from around 7 billion now

He is talking business deals not trade on a broader scale. As with China today so with India before. Each time what is sold publicly as a diplomatic trip. Our PM off to meet the political leaders of big and powerful foreign nations to negotiate deals and to sort out trading relationships is no longer the case.

What this is and the India trip was, are a trade fair and business trip as such I wish it well.

If China is acting in its own interests, why is it helping out Greece?

Trichet, makes the rather obvious point that China is acting in its own interests. He didn't think they would act out of charity did he?

But that leaves open the question, flagged up here and mentioned very briefly in one of the Sunday papers that China is backing up Greece.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday during a visit to Athens. "It is with joy that we see Greece emerging from the shadow of its debt crisis," Wen told the Greek parliament.

"The financial market has started to stabilise, the budget deficit is coming down, investor confidence is increasing and a growth prospect is emerging on the horizon."

As they said of Metternich when he died, "Why did he do that"?

Particularly when it was followed by this,

"With its foreign exchange reserves, China has already bought and intends to buy new Greek bonds ... China will undertake a great effort to support euro zone countries and Greece to overcome the crisis." And here's another from yet another story: "When Greece is in trouble, China is prepared to provide all the help it can." And Wen was also reported telling the same news conference that was "China's best friend in the European Union."

So there you have it, dear reader. China has a new best friend. (Bet that's news to struggling peasants spreading night soil on parched fields.) We don't know what all this fulsome talk portends, but we're going to keep our big ears to the ground. It seems obvious to us that someone has leaned on China(and Wen) to say some very nice things about Greece – and to indicate at the same time that China intends to ensure Greece's solvency.

Now I have no idea what is going on here, maybe China has taken a fancy to Pireaus harbour, I have no idea, but it is a little odd don't you think?

And do we really want China to be supporting us, in a sort of global realpolitik sort of way?

Well that basically makes it all rather academic

China's chief climate change negotiator rather makes everybody else redundent by announcing that China has no intention of hamstringing its economy due to the fashionable green whims of the West.

China "could not and should not" set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current phase, said Su Wei, the chief negotiator of China for climate change talks in Copenhagen, at a meeting in Beijing on China's climate change policies in the post-Copenhagen era.

Su, who is also director of the department of combating climate change under the National Development and Reform Commission, said that China's greenhouse gas emissions have to grow correspondingly as the country still has a long way to go in improving people's livelihoods and eradicating poverty.

Adaption is ok though, mitigation is good.

Seems eminently sensible to me.