The
Conservative government of David Cameron is currently cementing relations with
China, on the occasion of the official visit of the Chinese president to
London. There are very good reasons for this. The strong expectation is that China
will be a more important trading partner of Britain than even the rest of the
EU within the next twenty years. Despite a softening of Chinese growth in the
recent past there is no reason to believe that this is anything other than a
stabilising of its economic well-being.
The Chinese
president, Mr. Xi, and his wife, present a good image of China.
… but many problems need to be
overcome
Quite apart
from issues like the denial of democracy in China, at least in any kind of format
that would be recognisable in the West, there are a number of matters that will
have to be overcome if the budding friendship is to last. Even this week the announcement
of serious job losses in the UK’s once blooming steel industry have been blamed
almost entirely on the dumping of cheap Chinese steel, in extremely large quantities,
on the global market.
More
seriously for the UK is the displeasure in the US about the fact that Britain
saw fit to become a founding member of the Chinese dominated Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank, which was set up to rival the World Bank. It is
not beside the point that the Americans hold sway in that last named institution.
This led, last March, to a very rare public reprimand from the Obama
administration to the British. Washington accused London of a “constant accommodation”
of China on that occasion.
The US could
conceivably be looking for UK assistance over Chinese activities in the South
China Sea, where China has constructed nothing less than a new island in ocean territory
that is also claimed by Vietnam, The Philippines and Taiwan, and in which
matter America has taken a distinctly anti-Chinese stance.
No doubt the
US authorities are keeping a good eye on this week’s activities in London.
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