George Osborne has brushed off suggestions that his grand-scale tour of China at the head of a large delegation was designed to make him appear prime ministerial.
The Chancellor's progress around four major cities has been accompanied by the kind of ceremony often accorded to heads of government, with his Chinese hosts literally rolling out the red carpet wherever he went, shutting down roads to allow his motorcade of as many as 17 vehicles to speed by and granting him an audience with premier Li Keqiang - China's second most powerful man.
Mr Osborne's party for the five-day visit has included six other ministers - including three secretaries of state - senior business figures and leaders of northern England's biggest cities, as well as an entourage of more than a dozen Treasury and embassy staff.
Speaking to the Chancellor in the cab of a bullet train at Chengdu East Station, the Press Association asked whether voters in Britain could be forgiven for seeing the trip as "prime ministerial" and suspecting that Mr Osborne was getting practice in for a job he hopes to be doing for real within the next few years.
But Mr Osborne was having none of it.
"This is all about me doing my job as Chancellor," he said. "Bringing the jobs and investment to Britain, making sure that the British economy and the plan we have for its future is one that fits in with what is going on in the world.
"It would be so easy as finance minister to stay in Number 11 and stay in the Treasury and not reach out to the rest of the world and say 'Come and invest in Britain'. But I'm not that kind of Chancellor.
"I'm absolutely delighted that so many businesses and these great Northern cities have come along on this visit because they, like me, see that Britain's future lies in linking ourselves to the fastest growing parts of the world.
"Here we are in the centre of China, in an incredible railway station that they have built in the space of just a few years. This is part of the future and I want Britain to be part of the future."
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