David Cameron comes under fire in China David Cameron has suffered a fierce attack from China's largest Communist party-run newspaper during his visit to the country, undermining the prime minister's insistence that the relationship between the two nations is "indispensable." Speaking at a university in Shanghai, Mr Cameron welcomed the political, cultural and business links between Britain and China. But that did not stop the Global Times running an article attacking him for being insincere and irrelevant. "His visit this time can hardly be the end of the conflict between China and the UK," said an editorial in the newspaper which falls under the direct control of the propaganda department of the Communist party. It added: "The Cameron administration should acknowledge that the UK is not a big power in the eyes of the Chinese. It is just an old European country apt for travel and study. Although the newspaper is associated with hardline nationalist sentiment in the Communist party the editorial would have been agreed at a senior level in Beijing, and gives a glimpse of what lurks behind the warm rhetoric with which Mr Cameron has largely been welcomed by Chinese leaders. The British prime minister had a veiled attack of his own to make about the Chinese leadership, however. Speaking during a question-and-answer session with students in Shanghai, Mr Cameron went to great lengths to extol the virtues of political leaders having to answer difficult, unscripted questions. He said: "There are two good things about prime minister's questions. The first is that it puts the PM on their mettle, it puts them to the test . . . The public can see you are on your mettle, they can see you're doing OK. He added: "It also makes the government accountable. It means the whole mass of the government has to account for what it does through this one person, the prime minister. All of the questions put to Mr Cameron had been scripted and vetted before he answered them. He also sent a message to the government in Beijing by joining Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, prompting a flurry of questions from Chinese users asking when President Xi Jinping plans to join Twitter. The prime minister also put his seal on deals to be signed between British and Chinese companies, once again underlining trade as the primary focus of the visit. Mr Cameron told students in Shanghai: "There has been criticism from the British media that I am putting too much priority on the economy and business in my visit. But I'm pretty unapologetic. Britain is a trading nation . . . it is very important we trade more, we invest more.