Protester throws shoe at Chinese Premier during British visit

A protester threw a shoe at the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, as he gave a lecture at the University of Cambridge at the end of his three-day visit to the UK tonight.

Sitting about 20 rows away from the premier, the man stood and shouted: "How can you listen to this unchallenged?" The shoe landed on the stage but missed Wen.

Wen was unhurt and police arrested the man.

"One man has been arrested on suspicion of a public order offence after a shoe was thrown in the direction of the premier, and he is being taken to a Cambridgeshire police station for questioning," said police spokeswoman

Police said last night that a man had been arrested on suspicion of committing a public order offence.

Outside the hall, demonstrators objecting to Chinese policy in Tibet were penned in a corner about 50 yards from the entrance, with pro-China supporters closer in.

Earlier today, in talks in London, Wen and Gordon Brown presented their planned expansion of bilateral trade as an example to the rest of the world, demonstrating that the slump could be combated by free trade rather than protectionism.

Brown said that the Chinese government's huge economic stimulus package would help lead the world out of recession, and set a target of doubling British exports to China in the next 18 months, from £5bn to £10bn.

A Chinese ministerial delegation is expected to come to Britain in the next few weeks with a shopping list of what Beijng wants to buy with its 4tn yuan (£400bn) fiscal stimulus package. The business secretary, Peter Mandelson, and the environment secretary, Ed Miliband, will then fly to China in April, to help match British companies to China's plans and to discuss how to ensure that the eventual upturn is a "high growth but low carbon recovery".

Brown said that the sectors of British industry most likely to benefit would include aerospace, hi-tech manufacturing, education, and pharmaceuticals. The two leaders also signed agreements to harmonise the two countries patent systems and to open up China's provincial cities to British investment.

"By taking this action now, we believe we can expand trade between our two countries immediately and the benefit will flow to British workers in terms of jobs and British companies in contracts," Brown said. He described the export boost offered by the Chinese stimulus package as "absolutely crucial to helping the world's economy recovery", because it sent "a signal the world can only move forward out of this recession by trading with each other".

"Premier Wen and I agreed that the biggest danger the world faces is the retreat into protectionism, which is the road to ruin. The best attack on protectionism is to demonstrate today the benefits of trade for jobs, for businesses and for eventual prosperity," Brown said.

The need to head off protectionism, in the EU but particularly in the US, has been at the top of Wen's agenda during his three-day visit to the UK.

He made clear that he sees Brown, who will be hosting the G20 summit of major and emerging economies in April, as an important ally in support of free trade moderated by greater regulation of international finance.

"Some financial institutions pursued profit in a blind way without effective regulation. They have been using excessive leverage to gain huge profit, but when the bubble bursts the world is exposed to disasters," Wen said, in an implicit criticism of US and British free market policies leading up to the crash.

However, he said his visit to Britain and to other EU members last week had been "successful". The Chinese premier said: "I feel that the economies of the European Union and China enjoy huge potential. Both sides have strong capacity to address the current crisis. For China the fundamentals of the economy are sound and the long-term trend remains unchanged. So Chinese and European leaders need to be brave in shouldering our responsibilities so that we can give hope and confidence to our people and our business communities."

Brown has been warned not to sacrifice human rights concerns to the prospect of boosting exports. Wen's visit has been marked by raucous street protests. Five pro-Tibet demonstrators were arrested in London on Sunday. Brown insisted that human rights concerns had not been forgotten in the bilateral relationship.

"The UK will continue through our regular dialogue to seek rapid progress towards all international human rights standards and I urge further dialogue on the Chinese government to resolve the underlying issues in Tibet," the prime minister said. He tempered this implied criticism, however, by crediting Wen's social and economic policies with "lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty".

In a similar incident, an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at former U.S. president George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in December.