What is the significance of Foreign Secretary James Cleverly being the first senior British official to visit China since 2018?
It means financial profligacy from covid stimulus together with Brexit and the Ukraine conflict is finally biting, hard.
Unlike, say, fixing a Libya, Egypt, Iraq or Afghanistan, landing punches on a giant like China has its cost. The harder the punch thrown, the more it costs.
China hasn’t even countered much, merely parrying.
The UK seeks benefit from China it cannot get elsewhere, but this is after giving the finger to bilateral relations repeatedly, from the PM to Parliament.
They will come, and dangle assurances on Taiwan like old, and expect generous gifts in return.
They will be sorely disappointed because China hasn’t yielded to the tremendous, multidimensional pressure brought to bear over the past 7 years or so, since Donald the Orange took center-stage.
The Taiwan pressure point isn’t working anymore, short of the nuclear option of tearing up One China. But that’s a one trick pony leading to a reset in bilateral diplomacy, and the subsequent trade fallout, a la Lithuania.
James going to Beijing spreading goodwill and cheer isn’t going to erase the memory of the QEII sightseeing in the SCS, bragging about the intent to get itself militarily involved in conflict half a world away. Or Rishi and Co. gloating over the expansion of BN(O) privileges to over 5 million Hong Kong residents, after the mayhem that was sponsored and openly supported by the British establishment.
Weird, them Brits, waving a dagger in the left hand while extending the right for a handshake.
Take more pictures of Beijing, James. Something to bring home.