...David Cameron has forged a foreign policy that is committed to boosting the UK’s export performance...Yet Mr Cameron has also been keen to underscore...[an] area...that sometimes runs counter to trade promotion: the need to speak frankly about human rights abuses in other states, especially in the Middle East. With Britain this week hosting the president of the United Arab Emirates...the difficulty of managing these contrasting policy approaches has been all too apparent. The prime minister on Wednesday hailed the trade benefits of the UK’s relationship with the UAE...However, at a meeting with Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE president, he also pressed for a “proper, independent investigation” into claims that three Britons were tortured by police in Dubai. Mr Cameron has sharpened his tone on human rights since facing criticism in 2011 for leading a trade mission with UK defence companies to the Gulf early in the Arab uprising...The most striking example has been in relations with China. Last May, Mr Cameron met the Dalai Lama...As a result, the UK, unlike France and Germany, has since had few top-level political meetings with the Chinese leadership. A key question is whether Mr Cameron’s twin-track approach...is coherent and works. A senior Whitehall official said it did. “The more broad based and deep your relations are with authoritarian states, the more scope there is for your voice to be heard on issues that those governments don’t want to discuss,” he said. [refers to Shell, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company]