Britain says China calls off human rights talks at last minute

[World News]

China has called off talks with Britain on Beijing's human rights record, the British government said on Monday, four days after Britain published a list of concerns. Chinese and British officials had been due to hold a round of the bilateral Human Rights Dialogue in London on Wednesday after they agreed to restart the regular meetings during a trip to China by British Prime Minister David Cameron in December. Cameron's visit was aimed at spurring closer trade and business links between Britain and the world's second biggest economy and at drawing a line under a dispute involving Tibet's spiritual leader which had led to a diplomatic freeze. But Britain's Foreign Office said Beijing had pulled out of the first round of the talks, the resumption of which Cameron had hailed at the time as a significant achievement.

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