The UK’s open admission of its fondness for China’s support to the latter’s economy is evidenced by George Osborne, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s visit to China this week, which again emphasises the growing might of China as a global deal-changer in today’s geopolitics.
While in the country, Osborne announced a £2 billion (Dh11.4 billion) deal with China, in which it would invest in the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Osborne’s visit, predicated on boosting mutual trade and cooperation, is a serious objective for the British government that has been assiduously nurturing its relationship with China after the flashpoint in 2012, when UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in London, led to a deep chill between the two.
The extent to which the frost has melted since then is exemplified by the impending visit of China’s President Xi Xinping to London next month, a diplomatic milestone that occurs a full decade after the last Chinese premier’s visit in 2005. But in the midst of this feel-good climate of mutual co-operation lies an important truth: the need for the UK to ensure that it strikes a balance between its economic needs with China and its abiding political ideologies including its stand on Hong Kong’s sovereignty, an issue that has been a thorn in China’s flesh.
It will be to Britain’s credit if it can find a firm, expansive middle ground with China because this could be the only way to ensure that economic benefits, trade enhancement and cultural osmosis will become mutually rewarding articles of faith in the long run.
