Last Tuesday’s approval of China’s new “mega embassy” in London was met with an outpouring of anguish from Britian’s anti-China networks, including members of Parliament, United States-backed nongovernmental organizations, and activists, many of whom have accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of “selling out” to Beijing in honoring the diplomatic commitment that had been previously made. Indeed, even as the US explicitly antagonizes Europe, the British media have otherwise continued to fan the flames in trying to undermine Downing Street’s pursuit of a balanced, productive relationship with China.
These days, the paranoia directed toward China in Britain feels worse than that in America itself, which has distinctly moderated its position in the second Donald Trump administration. Indeed, even as fellow Five Eyes Canada and Australia have moved away from ardent hostility toward Beijing in recent years, the United Kingdom seems stuck, with the overriding goal of all opposition to try and undermine a sensible foreign policy toward Beijing than to support it. Of course, Starmer is scheduled to visit China soon, and we can imagine how toxic the media environment will be.
To me, none of this makes any sense. It is absolutely in the national interests of the UK to have a broad, prosperous, and open relationship with China, and there is ardent proof that overt hostility and weaponized ideological crusades are self-defeating. The Boris Johnson premiership’s decision to bin the so-called “golden era” and instead push overt hostility, purely out of his own short-termist political thinking, was extremely damaging to Britain in the long run. The decision to succumb to US pressure to exclude Huawei from the national 5G network cost the taxpayer billions, set back British network development for years, and permanently reduced the quality. Above all, Downing Street deliberately cultivated hostility to Chinese investment.
This reveals a wider problem, for too long and especially post-Brexit, British foreign policy has been captured by the dictates of ideology and identity, as opposed to realism and pragmatism. Britain follows the US, even when it is not quantifiably in the British interest to do so, and seems to struggle to find the spine to criticize Washington even when the White House’s behavior is at its objective worst.
Despite the unpredictability in the White House, successive British governments have sought to appease Washington for a trade deal, seemingly oblivious to the reality the US is currently going through a phase of extreme protectionism and will offer nothing more than one-sided capitulation to their own terms, which even then is not enough to remove a baseline minimum tariff. If Brexit was about sovereignty and “independence”, it appears to have had the opposite effect, largely due to its infusion with imperial nostalgia.
The so-called “special relationship”, never equal, is a romanticism based on how the British imagine the world to be, based on historical glories, as opposed to present realities. The UK and the US indeed have deep historical ties, but this is often more sentimental than practically useful. There is no need to be antagonistic to Washington, in respect of this unique position, yet pragmatically I argue the “special relationship” should now be downgraded to the “friendly relationship” whereby America is treated with respect, but not servitude, and that the UK pursues what is best for itself, as America always does anyway.
Thus, Britain, currently experiencing long-term economic stagnation, isn’t going to improve until it starts treating the world how it is, as opposed to how they would like it to be. China may have a very different political, ideological, and cultural outlook to Britain, but this does not change the practical reality that Britain needs a healthy and constructive relationship with the world’s second-largest economy and second-most-populous country. Many countries which have had previous falls in relations with China, including India, Canada, and Australia, have since adjusted their foreign policies toward China based on the rational calculation that in spite of what might set them apart, such a relationship is critically important. This is not as much a choice as it is a necessity. Differences are to be managed and discussed through professional diplomacy, not ideological and political conflict.
Having a mature relationship with China is not a “marriage”, and nor is it so-called “kowtowing”, but one of mutual benefit. China continues to offer the world’s largest domestic consumer market by scale, which is an essential anchor to have in a world where the multilateral trading system is being intentionally ripped up, with barriers being erected. Likewise, the UK remains one of the most important markets in the Western world, with London being a global financial center, as well as a destination for tens and thousands of Chinese students, tourists and other modes of cultural exchange.
The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
