China says UK's Brown never down for Olympic start

By David Clarke

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was never expected to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August, China said on Thursday.

Brown has rejected calls for a boycott of the opening and closing ceremonies over concerns about China's human rights record and a crackdown in Tibet. Some leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy have threatened to snub the start of the Games.

Thousands of anti-China protesters have disrupted the Beijing Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco and the European parliament voted on Thursday for a possible boycott by EU leaders of the opening ceremony.

"It has always been understood by both sides that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is attending the closing ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games," the Chinese Embassy in London said in a statement.

A British television channel reported on Wednesday that Brown had decided not to go to the opening ceremony. It said the British prime minister had not previously made that clear.

Brown's official spokesman said on March 19 the prime minister would attend the closing ceremony, as is customary for the leader of the next Summer Olympics host country.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will attend the opening. London is staging the 2012 Games.

Brown has said that even the Dalai Lama has not called for the Games to be spurned and the way forward in Tibet must be through an end to violence and dialogue. He is due to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in London in May.

Brown has launched a drive to improve relations with China. He said during a visit in January that Britain was open to Chinese trade and investment and lobbied for China's new $200 billion sovereign wealth fund to open an office in London.

"The prime minister told Premier Wen Jiabao in January that he would be attending the closing ceremony and not the opening ceremony," a Brown spokesman said.

"There has been official level contact between our two governments to that effect since then."

He said the Chinese premier sent Brown a message last weekend saying he was looking forward to welcoming him.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)