Opinion | As the new cold war thaws, UK and China look set for warmer ties
A decade ago, Sino-British relations enjoyed a “golden era” of cooperation. Eight years and four prime ministers later, relations had deteriorated so rapidly China was labelled a “threat” to the British way of life. The 2023 UK Defence Review identified Beijing’s “coercive behaviour” and efforts to “rewrite the international order” as the “epoch-defining global challenge to British interests”.
In turn, Beijing claimed the British establishment suffered from a “colonial mindset”. A China Daily editorial called the attempt to project a “global Britain” desperate and urged the UK to stop “fanning the flames of confrontation”.
Since winning last year’s election however, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has made reversing this downward trend a central foreign policy objective. Launching a charm offensive, high-ranking British officials and politicians have made their way east.
Last October, Foreign Secretary David Lammy became only the second British foreign minister to visit China in six years. In January, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves travelled to Beijing and Shanghai to normalise relations and secure economic investment, referring to her trip as a “re-engagement” in a sign of how far Sino-British relations had deteriorated.
This month, Admiral Tony Radakin, the head of Britain’s armed forces, also made the trip to China, the first by a chief of defence staff since the UK-China “golden era”. Radakin discussed military-to-military communications and joint security concerns with the Chinese military leadership and even gave a speech to students at the People’s Liberation Army’s National Defence University.
This is remarkable: Britain’s defence chief visiting to discuss security concerns with Beijing when just two years ago China was identified as the epoch-defining security concern. Only last July, Britain’s army chief, General Roland Walker, listed China among the key reasons Britain had three years to prepare for war.