You're a small country only fit for tourists and students! Chinese paper attacks Britain on PM's visit David Cameron has been forced to shrug off an attack by a Chinese newspaper that described the UK as "just an old European country" only fit for tourists and students. The Prime Minister said he would concentrate on the "facts and figures" showing rapidly increasing Chinese investment in Britain, rather than the excoriating article in the Beijing-based Global Times. The piece accused Mr Cameron of acting provocatively in meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama last year, an encounter which plunged Sino-British relations into a deep freeze from which they are only now recovering. It also took Mr Cameron to task for comments backing expanded democracy in former British colony Hong Kong. The Global Times, which is owned by the official Communist Party People's Daily newspaper, said: "The Cameron administration should acknowledge that the UK is not a big power in the eyes of the Chinese." The timing of the attack was particularly awkward, with Mr Cameron in the country and Downing Street basking in Chinese president Xi Jinping's description of the "indispensable relationship" between his country and the UK. The editorial added: "We've discovered that Britain is easily replaceable in China's European foreign policy. "Moreover, Britain is no longer any kind of "big country," but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams." Its sneering conclusion said: "We wish Prime Minister Cameron and his delegation a pleasant visit to China." The newspaper appeared to backtrack later, apparently on the orders of the Chinese government, with a softer piece about the Prime Minister. It said: "China and the UK hold divergent views in terms of human rights, democracy and freedom because of different development phases, political systems and ideologies. But this should neither dominate bilateral ties nor overshadow the momentum for cooperation. The Prime Minister, who yesterday hosted a lunch attended by 600 business leaders and officials in Shanghai, said he was not concerned by the editorial. Speaking on the second day of his visit to China, he said: "I would just prefer to go on the figures. This is a visit that has delivered almost £6billion worth of deals. It is a visit that comes on the back of an 18-month period where we have seen more Chinese investment into Britain than in the previous thirty years.