Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron (left) and China’s Premier Li Keqiang at a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

British Prime Minister David Cameron promised China’s leaders yesterday he would advocate a multi-billion-dollar free trade deal between Beijing and the European Union, riling the EU executive which rejected the move as premature.

On a three-day visit with around 100 business people, the largest-ever British mission of its kind, Cameron said Britain was the Western country most open to Chinese investment and well-placed to take advantage of China’s market liberalisation.

“China’s transformation is one of the defining facts of our lifetime... I see China’s rise as an opportunity, not just for the people of this country but for Britain and the world,” Cameron told reporters after meeting Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

China is the world’s second largest economy, after the US.

Cameron, who later met President Xi Jinping, cast Britain as far more progressive on trade than other EU member states in remarks that stirred a spat with Brussels over the issue.

British PM’s action irritates Brussels

“Some in Europe and elsewhere see the world changing and want to shut China off behind a bamboo curtain of trade barriers,” said Cameron. “Britain wants to tear those trade barriers down.”

His approach irritated the European Commission, which is privately understood to oppose a trade deal on the grounds that it risks flooding the 28-nation bloc with cheap Chinese imports.

“We believe that it is premature at this stage to discuss a free trade agreement with China,” Alexandre Polack, a spokesman for the EU executive, told reporters.

He said the EU and China were already discussing a possible investment agreement and should stick to that for now.

At home, Cameron’s trade initiative is likely to be seized on by opponents as he has placed a question mark over Britain’s EU membership by promising a referendum on leaving the bloc if re-elected in 2015.