In 2015, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, was welcomed to Britain on a state visit and even had a pint of beer in a country pub with David Cameron, then prime minister. This was the zenith of Sino-UK friendship, a brief interlude in an otherwise fraught history between the two countries dating back to the 19th century Opium Wars.
Mr Cameron wanted to usher in a “golden era” of engagement with Beijing in the aftermath of the global financial crisis which had confirmed China and its economic model as a key player on the economic stage.
Its Belt and Road Initiative had seen China’s influence spread around the world, especially in Africa and South America, while a massive stimulus programme sought to create an internal market for goods otherwise earmarked for export. Cheap products helped keep inflation and interest rates low in the West.
Yet, just nine years later, relations have been strained by China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, its treatment of the Uighur minority and its barely disguised cyber warfare programme aimed mainly at extracting commercial secrets. The heads of MI6 and the CIA recently called the rise of China “the principal intelligence and geopolitical challenge of the 21st century”.
However, the position of the Government on these developments is hard to discern. Policy was hazy enough under the Conservatives, not least when Lord Cameron returned to the Foreign Office, but it is positively opaque under Labour.
Sir Keir Starmer has met President Xi on the margins of the G20 summit in Brazil, the first prime minister to do so for six years. He is said to want a “new and pragmatic relationship” with Beijing but what does that entail? Sir Keir emphasised the important inter-connectivity of the two economies as if that was not something already well-known. Downing Street insisted he would be “honest and firm” with the Chinese president about human rights. But what does any of this mean in practice?
Does the British Government have a coherent view of our future relationship with China if, as seems likely, a major trade war is triggered by Donald Trump? Even under Joe Biden the Americans were not prepared to accommodate a rising threat to their economic security. Sir Keir may wish to steer a pragmatic middle course between the two economic behemoths but such a simple path may not be available. Sooner or later a side will have to be taken.