If you mean Jews just say it.
China-UK (Britain) Geopolitics and Economics: News & Discussions
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Götterdämmerung
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No, these parasites wouldn't give a flying fcuk about Jews.
prima99
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Tea and Crumpets, right? i mean it cannot be the Paddy, Taffy, and Jock so... yeah
Götterdämmerung
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Them, among others, indeed, deary, indeed.
jkroo
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That is also my concern if you connect China domestic financial affairs with such kind. UK is just agent. So it should be observed carefully and improve our risk management measures and abilities.
Let's wait and see how US is abandoned by them. An interesting process.
Götterdämmerung
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What free flow of information? Like the Libor scandal? Enron or WorldCom anyone? Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall St. and the City of London etc, they are all controlled by the same cabal. When a scandal comes to the surface, it's because from time to time they need a sacrificial lamb to show to the public that they do persecute the bad boys.
To deal with this cabal, you need more than just to improve risk management. These criminals have no problems to kill millions to meet their goal.
Speeder 2
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By free flow I meant free flow, good , bad and urgly, all and sundry. The traders will filter them and decide when and how to act accordingly.
The mainstram are of course controled by the same group, yet people can also freely go to alternatively news for info.
My point is still valid that CPC won't allow the free flow of info. Basically it's both bad and good news for the Chinese. Overall speaking I think the bad is more than the good in the long run.
The lion shre of world's financial transactions depend on information arbitrage. It's impossible for the City to know something about the market while SH doesn't know or know it at a delayed basis. Don't think CPC will give free altavoz to Bloomberg, Reuters alike.
Götterdämmerung
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Sorry, there is not such thing as free flow of information here in the "free West". All the news going through the official channels have been filtered. That's how the cabal makes inside trading with inpunity.
mike2000 is back
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Welcome development. London is the worlds financial capital. Shanghai will do well to cooperate with London. WIN-WIN situation. 
XiaoYaoZi
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Yeah, @mike2000 is back again.Welcome development. London is the worlds financial capital. Shanghai will do well to cooperate with London. WIN-WIN situation.
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Britain's Special Relationship With China
OCT 7, 2015 @ 11:44 AM
The latest manifestation of the close relationship that Britain is building with China is the announcement that the Chinese central bank plans to issue short-term debt in London, the first time that it’s doing so outside of China.
The choice of the U.K. is no accident. Wooing China has been part of the U.K.’s strategy for some time.
London dominates global foreign exchange trading but would find it hard to hold onto its position if the currency of the world’s second largest economy, and its biggest trader, wasn’t choosing the U.K.
For China, its currency is on the road towards becoming convertible. As part of its RMB internationalisation strategy, China intends to increase the use of its currency overseas and eventually emerges a global reserve currency.
In the interim, China is choosing where to base its currency transactions and London has so far gained a solid foothold in the RMB business.
For the People’s Bank of China to issue short-term debt in RMB in the City of London in the near future is another step down this path.
There isn’t a great amount of risk in a central bank issuing bills since they, after all, control the money supply.
The other announcement, though, made by the Chancellor George Osborne during his recent visit to China may engender a greater source of volatility. It’ll be interesting to see how far this progresses by the time of the Chinese President’s visit later this month.
The U.K. is launching a feasibility study to link the Chinese stock market, which is largely closed to foreign investors, directly to the London stock market.
So far, the dramatic double digit falls in Chinese stocks haven’t been transmitted globally, except indirectly by dampening investor sentiment. That’s because few global investors are able to invest freely in the A-share market. It’s one of the reasons why volatility in China doesn’t get transmitted the same way as America’s. But, if the Chinese market becomes linked to London, then London – and global markets – could be directly affected by the gyrations of Chinese stocks. The link between the stock markets of Hong Kong and Shanghai is one example, though the Hang Seng had been subject to shifting sentiment about China for a while due to the number of mainland companies listed there.
In some respects, London has also already borne more of the impact of the Chinese market crisis over the summer than others because it lists a number of commodity companies whose stocks have been dragged down by China.
Still, it’s a big step and one that the U.K. may well be keen on to cement a “special relationship” with the world’s second largest economy. It’s a strategy that makes sense over the longer term, since the special relationship with the U.S. has been largely a fruitful one for Britain. But, in the short term, any direct links with China will entail a cost of greater volatility. The U.K. will need to decide if it’s a price worth paying.
Britain's Special Relationship With China
OCT 7, 2015 @ 11:44 AM
The latest manifestation of the close relationship that Britain is building with China is the announcement that the Chinese central bank plans to issue short-term debt in London, the first time that it’s doing so outside of China.
The choice of the U.K. is no accident. Wooing China has been part of the U.K.’s strategy for some time.
London dominates global foreign exchange trading but would find it hard to hold onto its position if the currency of the world’s second largest economy, and its biggest trader, wasn’t choosing the U.K.
For China, its currency is on the road towards becoming convertible. As part of its RMB internationalisation strategy, China intends to increase the use of its currency overseas and eventually emerges a global reserve currency.
In the interim, China is choosing where to base its currency transactions and London has so far gained a solid foothold in the RMB business.
For the People’s Bank of China to issue short-term debt in RMB in the City of London in the near future is another step down this path.
There isn’t a great amount of risk in a central bank issuing bills since they, after all, control the money supply.
The other announcement, though, made by the Chancellor George Osborne during his recent visit to China may engender a greater source of volatility. It’ll be interesting to see how far this progresses by the time of the Chinese President’s visit later this month.
The U.K. is launching a feasibility study to link the Chinese stock market, which is largely closed to foreign investors, directly to the London stock market.
So far, the dramatic double digit falls in Chinese stocks haven’t been transmitted globally, except indirectly by dampening investor sentiment. That’s because few global investors are able to invest freely in the A-share market. It’s one of the reasons why volatility in China doesn’t get transmitted the same way as America’s. But, if the Chinese market becomes linked to London, then London – and global markets – could be directly affected by the gyrations of Chinese stocks. The link between the stock markets of Hong Kong and Shanghai is one example, though the Hang Seng had been subject to shifting sentiment about China for a while due to the number of mainland companies listed there.
In some respects, London has also already borne more of the impact of the Chinese market crisis over the summer than others because it lists a number of commodity companies whose stocks have been dragged down by China.
Still, it’s a big step and one that the U.K. may well be keen on to cement a “special relationship” with the world’s second largest economy. It’s a strategy that makes sense over the longer term, since the special relationship with the U.S. has been largely a fruitful one for Britain. But, in the short term, any direct links with China will entail a cost of greater volatility. The U.K. will need to decide if it’s a price worth paying.
Britain's Special Relationship With China
meis
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Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations
Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations | The Diplomat
After his visit to the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay his first state visit to the United Kingdom next week, in what will be the first such presidential visit to the U.K. in ten years (the last one was former president Hu Jintao’s trip in 2005). As preparations for the trip took place, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi used the terms “golden year” and “golden age” to describe the current China-U.K. relationship. During his recent five-day trip to China, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne tweeted that “China and Britain stand on brink of golden decade of cooperation.” What exactly can we expect the bilateral relationship to be like after Xi’s state visit? How golden can the full picture be in reality?
Economic Cooperation
The first and most important aspect of the current China-U.K. relationship is economics. This is a result of more pragmatic policies by Cameron’s government and growing economic interdependence between the two countries. The U.K.’s relationship with China hit a rough patch in 2012 and 2013, after Cameron met with the Dalai Lama in May 2012. Opposition to the human rights situation in China and concern about how Beijing dealt with Hong Kong’s autonomy also has caused unease. Now, Cameron’s team has become pragmatic and is highlighting the positive side of the bilateral relationship – the U.K.’s decision to join the AIIB despite U.S. opposition serves as a good example. For now, both China and the U.K. are determined to make up for lost time. In particular, the U.K. sees its relations with China lagging behind those between China and Germany.
In terms of economic interdependence, the U.K. is China’s second largest trade partner in the EU (after Germany), while China is the U.K.’s second largest non-EU trade partner. The U.K. also is the most popular destination for Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU, and it is China’s second largest source of investment in the EU.
All in all, the golden elements of current China-U.K. relations are indeed tangible, namely goods and capital flows. Xi will be bringing a delegation of important business people with him, and big trade deals are expected to be signed. The Chinese side wants its railway, energy, aviation, and telecommunications industries to secure a foothold in the U.K. market, whereas the British side has its eye on Chinese financial markets as well as vast amounts of Chinese capital as a source of FDI. In particular, the city of London is demanding increases in Chinese investment in terms of both value and quality, especially commercial investment (as opposed to investment in property).
The U.K. economy is currently performing relatively strongly, yet the growth does not seem to be stable, as demonstrated by the decision of the Bank of England not to increase interest rates from their lowest-ever level over recent months. As an open economy, the U.K. is always sensitive to international markets. Moreover, Cameron and his Conservative party have just secured control over the new government. They have to sustain the country’s economic recovery if they are to sustain their popular support. Given that reality, China and its market of 1.3 billion people and more than $3.5 trillion in foreign currency reserves is a crucial economic partner for the U.K..
In a recent round of interviews with fourteen national elites in London, as part of a research project conducted by the authors, British elites equated China with being a “huge market” and a “huge source of capital.” They hope that the city of London can become the financial center of renminbi trading in Europe, and they also hope that China will open up its financial services and capital markets to the British financial sector.
Among Chinese economic sectors, the nuclear industry and the high-speed railway industry are among the most enthusiastic to seal business deals with the U.K.. Such deals would signify Western economies’ recognition of Chinese-developed high-end technology, thus marking China’s successful industrial transition from factories producing goods involving low-end technology to become a producer of advanced technology.
In addition, the Chinese side will explain the recent depreciation of the renminbi and fluctuations in the country’s stock markets, so as to assure their British counterparts that the Chinese economy has the confidence to keep implementing reforms. For China, the U.K., with London as a world-leading financial center and with a government that already includes the renminbi in its foreign currency reserves, is a crucial partner for the internationalization of the renminbi. An agreement between the two countries to study linking the stock markets in Shanghai and London, for example, signifies strong will on both sides to bring bilateral relations to the next level.
Political Cooperation
In terms of diplomacy, the arrangement of Xi’s trip as a single-country visit and having Queen Elizabeth II serve as the host (at Buckingham Palace) shows both sides’ earnest desire to boost the bilateral strategic partnership (which was established in 2004). As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yo stated, Xi’s visit will mark the start of a “golden age” of the China-U.K. relationship.
Entering such a golden age means that the two sides are focusing mainly on constructive cooperation and common interests. Indeed, this trend can be traced back to the U.K.’s application – the first from the Western world – to join the AIIB. China sees not only the pragmatism of Cameron, but also a readiness for the bilateral relationship to become a new type of great power relations. Accordingly, controversial issues – namely the Chinese human rights situation, reforms of Hong Kong’s political system, and cyber hacking are likely to be relegated to the sidelines.
Another issue at the top of Cameron’s agenda is the (re)negotiation of the U.K.’s membership in the EU. Unlike his last visit to Europe in 2014, which included four EU countries, Xi will only visit the U.K. on this state visit. To have China attach such importance to the U.K. can help London highlight its special international status and increase the U.K.’s bargaining power against Brussels. Boosting close ties with major global powers like China helps Cameron’s government to dismiss concerns about a decline in the U.K.’s global role, and thus strengthens its internal support among British citizens.
Notably, Xi’s visit can truly establish a golden era in the China-U.K. relationship only if China and the U.K. recognize the fact that they do see eye to eye with each other. On the one hand, China prefers an integrated European Union that can serve as one major pole in a multipolar world, and so China prefers that the U.K. not leave the EU. On the other hand, China is aware of the different voices within the EU. China understands the U.K.’s worries and concerns about its EU membership and sees it as normal for a large group of countries like the EU member states to have divergent views and interests. The U.K. would risk a lot by actually leaving the EU, but the country retains more independence from Brussels by keeping a distance.
Most importantly, the most significant bilateral relationship for the U.K. remains that with the United States. The U.K. is also unlikely to abandon the values and norms that make it part of the West. The aforementioned references to a golden year mean that China and the U.K. are deliberately downplaying their ideological differences. Yet differences in political culture and social values remain. A mature partnership requires both sides to respect their differences. While conflict is a part of international relations, today’s world is also highly globalized and interdependent. Mature partners like China and the U.K. send a positive message to each other and to the outside world that focusing on common interests is the key.
As suggested by a majority of the British elites that were interviewed, a close partnership between China and the U.K. requires better mutual understanding than currently exists. Effective dialogue (instead of monologue) and candid exchanges of opinions are irreplaceable. Cultural and people-to-people exchanges, like the China-U.K. High-Level People-to-People Exchange Mechanism and the recently suggested idea of exchanging historical relics, are necessary for a comprehensive partnership, although the process is a long-term one. It is precisely because of the slow process of building trust that Xi’s meeting with Cameron should mark a concrete starting point. The pair should be proactive in promoting the “golden age” of bilateral ties, making the China-U.K. relationship an example for other countries.
Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations | The Diplomat
Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations | The Diplomat
After his visit to the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay his first state visit to the United Kingdom next week, in what will be the first such presidential visit to the U.K. in ten years (the last one was former president Hu Jintao’s trip in 2005). As preparations for the trip took place, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi used the terms “golden year” and “golden age” to describe the current China-U.K. relationship. During his recent five-day trip to China, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne tweeted that “China and Britain stand on brink of golden decade of cooperation.” What exactly can we expect the bilateral relationship to be like after Xi’s state visit? How golden can the full picture be in reality?
Economic Cooperation
The first and most important aspect of the current China-U.K. relationship is economics. This is a result of more pragmatic policies by Cameron’s government and growing economic interdependence between the two countries. The U.K.’s relationship with China hit a rough patch in 2012 and 2013, after Cameron met with the Dalai Lama in May 2012. Opposition to the human rights situation in China and concern about how Beijing dealt with Hong Kong’s autonomy also has caused unease. Now, Cameron’s team has become pragmatic and is highlighting the positive side of the bilateral relationship – the U.K.’s decision to join the AIIB despite U.S. opposition serves as a good example. For now, both China and the U.K. are determined to make up for lost time. In particular, the U.K. sees its relations with China lagging behind those between China and Germany.
In terms of economic interdependence, the U.K. is China’s second largest trade partner in the EU (after Germany), while China is the U.K.’s second largest non-EU trade partner. The U.K. also is the most popular destination for Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU, and it is China’s second largest source of investment in the EU.
All in all, the golden elements of current China-U.K. relations are indeed tangible, namely goods and capital flows. Xi will be bringing a delegation of important business people with him, and big trade deals are expected to be signed. The Chinese side wants its railway, energy, aviation, and telecommunications industries to secure a foothold in the U.K. market, whereas the British side has its eye on Chinese financial markets as well as vast amounts of Chinese capital as a source of FDI. In particular, the city of London is demanding increases in Chinese investment in terms of both value and quality, especially commercial investment (as opposed to investment in property).
The U.K. economy is currently performing relatively strongly, yet the growth does not seem to be stable, as demonstrated by the decision of the Bank of England not to increase interest rates from their lowest-ever level over recent months. As an open economy, the U.K. is always sensitive to international markets. Moreover, Cameron and his Conservative party have just secured control over the new government. They have to sustain the country’s economic recovery if they are to sustain their popular support. Given that reality, China and its market of 1.3 billion people and more than $3.5 trillion in foreign currency reserves is a crucial economic partner for the U.K..
In a recent round of interviews with fourteen national elites in London, as part of a research project conducted by the authors, British elites equated China with being a “huge market” and a “huge source of capital.” They hope that the city of London can become the financial center of renminbi trading in Europe, and they also hope that China will open up its financial services and capital markets to the British financial sector.
Among Chinese economic sectors, the nuclear industry and the high-speed railway industry are among the most enthusiastic to seal business deals with the U.K.. Such deals would signify Western economies’ recognition of Chinese-developed high-end technology, thus marking China’s successful industrial transition from factories producing goods involving low-end technology to become a producer of advanced technology.
In addition, the Chinese side will explain the recent depreciation of the renminbi and fluctuations in the country’s stock markets, so as to assure their British counterparts that the Chinese economy has the confidence to keep implementing reforms. For China, the U.K., with London as a world-leading financial center and with a government that already includes the renminbi in its foreign currency reserves, is a crucial partner for the internationalization of the renminbi. An agreement between the two countries to study linking the stock markets in Shanghai and London, for example, signifies strong will on both sides to bring bilateral relations to the next level.
Political Cooperation
In terms of diplomacy, the arrangement of Xi’s trip as a single-country visit and having Queen Elizabeth II serve as the host (at Buckingham Palace) shows both sides’ earnest desire to boost the bilateral strategic partnership (which was established in 2004). As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yo stated, Xi’s visit will mark the start of a “golden age” of the China-U.K. relationship.
Entering such a golden age means that the two sides are focusing mainly on constructive cooperation and common interests. Indeed, this trend can be traced back to the U.K.’s application – the first from the Western world – to join the AIIB. China sees not only the pragmatism of Cameron, but also a readiness for the bilateral relationship to become a new type of great power relations. Accordingly, controversial issues – namely the Chinese human rights situation, reforms of Hong Kong’s political system, and cyber hacking are likely to be relegated to the sidelines.
Another issue at the top of Cameron’s agenda is the (re)negotiation of the U.K.’s membership in the EU. Unlike his last visit to Europe in 2014, which included four EU countries, Xi will only visit the U.K. on this state visit. To have China attach such importance to the U.K. can help London highlight its special international status and increase the U.K.’s bargaining power against Brussels. Boosting close ties with major global powers like China helps Cameron’s government to dismiss concerns about a decline in the U.K.’s global role, and thus strengthens its internal support among British citizens.
Notably, Xi’s visit can truly establish a golden era in the China-U.K. relationship only if China and the U.K. recognize the fact that they do see eye to eye with each other. On the one hand, China prefers an integrated European Union that can serve as one major pole in a multipolar world, and so China prefers that the U.K. not leave the EU. On the other hand, China is aware of the different voices within the EU. China understands the U.K.’s worries and concerns about its EU membership and sees it as normal for a large group of countries like the EU member states to have divergent views and interests. The U.K. would risk a lot by actually leaving the EU, but the country retains more independence from Brussels by keeping a distance.
Most importantly, the most significant bilateral relationship for the U.K. remains that with the United States. The U.K. is also unlikely to abandon the values and norms that make it part of the West. The aforementioned references to a golden year mean that China and the U.K. are deliberately downplaying their ideological differences. Yet differences in political culture and social values remain. A mature partnership requires both sides to respect their differences. While conflict is a part of international relations, today’s world is also highly globalized and interdependent. Mature partners like China and the U.K. send a positive message to each other and to the outside world that focusing on common interests is the key.
As suggested by a majority of the British elites that were interviewed, a close partnership between China and the U.K. requires better mutual understanding than currently exists. Effective dialogue (instead of monologue) and candid exchanges of opinions are irreplaceable. Cultural and people-to-people exchanges, like the China-U.K. High-Level People-to-People Exchange Mechanism and the recently suggested idea of exchanging historical relics, are necessary for a comprehensive partnership, although the process is a long-term one. It is precisely because of the slow process of building trust that Xi’s meeting with Cameron should mark a concrete starting point. The pair should be proactive in promoting the “golden age” of bilateral ties, making the China-U.K. relationship an example for other countries.
Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations | The Diplomat
Shotgunner51
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Britain is bending over backward to prove its friendship to China - The Washington Post
By Simon Denyer
October 14
President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping cross paths during the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping at the 70th annual U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in September. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Britain next week -- the first by a Chinese leader in a decade. He comes at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, and will stay as her guest at Buckingham Palace, to be treated with all the pomp and ceremony that the former imperial power can still muster.
China’s foreign ministry announced this week that the trip will lead to the signing of agreements worth a “huge” amount of money and herald a new “golden era” in ties between the two countries.
And that is exactly what the British government wants. Ever since Prime Minister David Cameron felt the full force of Chinese displeasure after meeting the Dalai Lama in 2012, Britain’s government has been working overtime to ingratiate itself with Beijing.
[What China's Xi Jinping thinks about freedom]
The effort is led by Chancellor of the Exchequer -- or finance minister -- George Osborne, who visited China last month and also envisions a “golden relationship” between the two countries that “fosters a golden decade” for Britain. China will become the economic center of the globe, and Britain should not just embrace its rise, but become its best partner in the West, he says.
The gold, of course, is all coming from China, in the form of hoped-for investment in British infrastructure, while London is cast in the role of humble, uncritical supplicant, with talk of human rights expressly banished from the room.
But it is a policy that is starting to attract widespread criticism, both at home and abroad. Rounding up the media coverage, the China Digital Times Web site called it “Osborne’s New Model of Minor Power Supplications” and asked, “Is British Policy For Sale to China?”
A close-up of the 1297 Magna Carta at the National Archives in the District on March 3, 2008. David Rubenstein purchased the 711 year old document at auction and then donated it to the National Archives. (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)
A version of the Magna Carta, England's 13th-century bill of rights, is on display in China this week. But London's Times newspaper said it was a "pathetically inadequate" gesture, arguing the British government should take a far more robust approach to calling China out over its "despotism."
Britain, of course, has a long and troubled history with China. It is remembered here as a leading colonial power that inflicted what is known as a century of national humiliation on China from the mid-19th century onward, from the Opium Wars through the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. But that’s no excuse, critics say, for the current policy of complete kowtowing to the Chinese dictatorship.
Criticism surfaced in March, when Britain broke ranks with the United States by becoming the first European nation to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Although Britain’s finance ministry, the Treasury, congratulated itself on having stolen a march on Frankfurt in the race to become an offshore trading center for the Chinese currency, Washington was distinctly sniffy.
The decision, an unnamed senior administration official told the Financial Times, had been taken with ”virtually no consultation” with the United States, lamenting “a trend towards constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power.”
But it was Osborne’s trip to the troubled western Chinese province of Xinjiang that set “a new low,” according to Joan Smith, writing in the Independent. Human rights groups say China systematically suppresses the social, economic and religious rights of the region’s Muslim Uighurs, and Osborne’s trip came on the anniversary of the highly controversial trial and sentencing of moderate Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.
But that seemed to worry the British Chancellor not one bit, as Tom Phillips reported in the Guardian -- with Osborne promising to bring economic development to Xinjiang through British investment while blithely ignoring the argument that the benefits of development there have flowed overwhelmingly to China’s ethnic Han majority and may indeed have exacerbated ethnic tensions with the Uighurs.
China is now grappling with a rise in violence in Xinjiang, and former British diplomat Kerry Brown wrote that Britain lacks the expertise to invest in such a complex region and address the formidable political, economic and social challenges there.
“Amoral foreign policy has been a unique specialty of the U.K. for centuries,” Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney, wrote in The Diplomat, but went on to argue that this trip did not even make commercial sense. “As it is, there is the sneaking suspicion that Osborne went to Xinjiang not for commercial reasons, but to pander for political favor in Beijing. And that leads us to the depressing conclusion that it is not just British business and expertise that is for sale in China -- so is British government policy.”
British officials sometimes argue that their leaders are making the case for human rights with their Chinese counterparts in private rather than in public, but when pressed struggle to cite examples of when such a softly-softly approach has worked before. Indeed, human rights advocates are convinced there are none.
In a piece in The Spectator about Cameron's "craven surrender" to China, Jonathan Mirsky gives a revealing anecdote about how then-British Prime Minister John Major insisted to reporters he had forcefully raised the issue of political prisoners in a private meeting with his Chinese counterpart in 1991, despite -- as one official in the room later admitted -- having actually failed to even mention the issue.
To the British government, the policy might seem to be working. China’s state media certainly approves -- China Daily praised Osborne for his “pragmatic” approach, while a nationalist tabloid, the Global Times, said, “It should be diplomatic etiquette for foreign leaders not to confront China by raising the human rights issue,” adding: “Keeping a modest manner is the correct attitude for a foreign minister visiting China to seek business opportunities.”
But does Britain really want such a cozy relationship with an authoritarian state that systematically curbs the fundamental rights of its people, including their freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion, and under President Xi is engaged in a dramatic further crackdown on those rights? Or should it, in fact, be sticking up for the Chinese people, for the lawyers, activists and ordinary people who face imprisonment and even torture for expressing their views?
In an e-mail to The Washington Post, William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong, said Osborne’s Xinjiang trip had been a public relations coup for Beijing, while Cameron’s efforts to ingratiate himself with the Chinese after the Dalai Lama had played into Beijing’s hands.
“Historically, China has been very adept at 'punishing' countries that bring up human rights too forcefully, putting them in the dog house, and then forcing them to 'repair' the damaged relationship through obsequious and overly reverential grovelling acts, which are then handsomely rewarded,” he wrote. “And strategically, the Chinese government has tried to use these examples as warnings to other countries.
“However, the backlash in the public and in the media to Osborne's Xinjiang visit shows that many people in Britain and around the world expect that their leaders should speak out in a principled, respectful, and forceful way -- both in public and private."
By Simon Denyer
October 14
President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping cross paths during the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping at the 70th annual U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in September. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Britain next week -- the first by a Chinese leader in a decade. He comes at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, and will stay as her guest at Buckingham Palace, to be treated with all the pomp and ceremony that the former imperial power can still muster.
China’s foreign ministry announced this week that the trip will lead to the signing of agreements worth a “huge” amount of money and herald a new “golden era” in ties between the two countries.
And that is exactly what the British government wants. Ever since Prime Minister David Cameron felt the full force of Chinese displeasure after meeting the Dalai Lama in 2012, Britain’s government has been working overtime to ingratiate itself with Beijing.
[What China's Xi Jinping thinks about freedom]
The effort is led by Chancellor of the Exchequer -- or finance minister -- George Osborne, who visited China last month and also envisions a “golden relationship” between the two countries that “fosters a golden decade” for Britain. China will become the economic center of the globe, and Britain should not just embrace its rise, but become its best partner in the West, he says.
The gold, of course, is all coming from China, in the form of hoped-for investment in British infrastructure, while London is cast in the role of humble, uncritical supplicant, with talk of human rights expressly banished from the room.
But it is a policy that is starting to attract widespread criticism, both at home and abroad. Rounding up the media coverage, the China Digital Times Web site called it “Osborne’s New Model of Minor Power Supplications” and asked, “Is British Policy For Sale to China?”
A close-up of the 1297 Magna Carta at the National Archives in the District on March 3, 2008. David Rubenstein purchased the 711 year old document at auction and then donated it to the National Archives. (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)
A version of the Magna Carta, England's 13th-century bill of rights, is on display in China this week. But London's Times newspaper said it was a "pathetically inadequate" gesture, arguing the British government should take a far more robust approach to calling China out over its "despotism."
Britain, of course, has a long and troubled history with China. It is remembered here as a leading colonial power that inflicted what is known as a century of national humiliation on China from the mid-19th century onward, from the Opium Wars through the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. But that’s no excuse, critics say, for the current policy of complete kowtowing to the Chinese dictatorship.
Criticism surfaced in March, when Britain broke ranks with the United States by becoming the first European nation to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Although Britain’s finance ministry, the Treasury, congratulated itself on having stolen a march on Frankfurt in the race to become an offshore trading center for the Chinese currency, Washington was distinctly sniffy.
The decision, an unnamed senior administration official told the Financial Times, had been taken with ”virtually no consultation” with the United States, lamenting “a trend towards constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power.”
But it was Osborne’s trip to the troubled western Chinese province of Xinjiang that set “a new low,” according to Joan Smith, writing in the Independent. Human rights groups say China systematically suppresses the social, economic and religious rights of the region’s Muslim Uighurs, and Osborne’s trip came on the anniversary of the highly controversial trial and sentencing of moderate Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.
But that seemed to worry the British Chancellor not one bit, as Tom Phillips reported in the Guardian -- with Osborne promising to bring economic development to Xinjiang through British investment while blithely ignoring the argument that the benefits of development there have flowed overwhelmingly to China’s ethnic Han majority and may indeed have exacerbated ethnic tensions with the Uighurs.
China is now grappling with a rise in violence in Xinjiang, and former British diplomat Kerry Brown wrote that Britain lacks the expertise to invest in such a complex region and address the formidable political, economic and social challenges there.
“Amoral foreign policy has been a unique specialty of the U.K. for centuries,” Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney, wrote in The Diplomat, but went on to argue that this trip did not even make commercial sense. “As it is, there is the sneaking suspicion that Osborne went to Xinjiang not for commercial reasons, but to pander for political favor in Beijing. And that leads us to the depressing conclusion that it is not just British business and expertise that is for sale in China -- so is British government policy.”
British officials sometimes argue that their leaders are making the case for human rights with their Chinese counterparts in private rather than in public, but when pressed struggle to cite examples of when such a softly-softly approach has worked before. Indeed, human rights advocates are convinced there are none.
In a piece in The Spectator about Cameron's "craven surrender" to China, Jonathan Mirsky gives a revealing anecdote about how then-British Prime Minister John Major insisted to reporters he had forcefully raised the issue of political prisoners in a private meeting with his Chinese counterpart in 1991, despite -- as one official in the room later admitted -- having actually failed to even mention the issue.
To the British government, the policy might seem to be working. China’s state media certainly approves -- China Daily praised Osborne for his “pragmatic” approach, while a nationalist tabloid, the Global Times, said, “It should be diplomatic etiquette for foreign leaders not to confront China by raising the human rights issue,” adding: “Keeping a modest manner is the correct attitude for a foreign minister visiting China to seek business opportunities.”
But does Britain really want such a cozy relationship with an authoritarian state that systematically curbs the fundamental rights of its people, including their freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion, and under President Xi is engaged in a dramatic further crackdown on those rights? Or should it, in fact, be sticking up for the Chinese people, for the lawyers, activists and ordinary people who face imprisonment and even torture for expressing their views?
In an e-mail to The Washington Post, William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong, said Osborne’s Xinjiang trip had been a public relations coup for Beijing, while Cameron’s efforts to ingratiate himself with the Chinese after the Dalai Lama had played into Beijing’s hands.
“Historically, China has been very adept at 'punishing' countries that bring up human rights too forcefully, putting them in the dog house, and then forcing them to 'repair' the damaged relationship through obsequious and overly reverential grovelling acts, which are then handsomely rewarded,” he wrote. “And strategically, the Chinese government has tried to use these examples as warnings to other countries.
“However, the backlash in the public and in the media to Osborne's Xinjiang visit shows that many people in Britain and around the world expect that their leaders should speak out in a principled, respectful, and forceful way -- both in public and private."
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butthhurt US LOLBritain is bending over backward to prove its friendship to China - The Washington Post
By Simon Denyer October 14
President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping cross paths during the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping at the 70th annual U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in September. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Britain next week -- the first by a Chinese leader in a decade. He comes at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, and will stay as her guest at Buckingham Palace, to be treated with all the pomp and ceremony that the former imperial power can still muster.
China’s foreign ministry announced this week that the trip will lead to the signing of agreements worth a “huge” amount of money and herald a new “golden era” in ties between the two countries.
And that is exactly what the British government wants. Ever since Prime Minister David Cameron felt the full force of Chinese displeasure after meeting the Dalai Lama in 2012, Britain’s government has been working overtime to ingratiate itself with Beijing.
[What China's Xi Jinping thinks about freedom]
The effort is led by Chancellor of the Exchequer -- or finance minister -- George Osborne, who visited China last month and also envisions a “golden relationship” between the two countries that “fosters a golden decade” for Britain. China will become the economic center of the globe, and Britain should not just embrace its rise, but become its best partner in the West, he says.
The gold, of course, is all coming from China, in the form of hoped-for investment in British infrastructure, while London is cast in the role of humble, uncritical supplicant, with talk of human rights expressly banished from the room.
But it is a policy that is starting to attract widespread criticism, both at home and abroad. Rounding up the media coverage, the China Digital Times Web site called it “Osborne’s New Model of Minor Power Supplications” and asked, “Is British Policy For Sale to China?”
A close-up of the 1297 Magna Carta at the National Archives in the District on March 3, 2008. David Rubenstein purchased the 711 year old document at auction and then donated it to the National Archives. (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)
A version of the Magna Carta, England's 13th-century bill of rights, is on display in China this week. But London's Times newspaper said it was a "pathetically inadequate" gesture, arguing the British government should take a far more robust approach to calling China out over its "despotism."
Britain, of course, has a long and troubled history with China. It is remembered here as a leading colonial power that inflicted what is known as a century of national humiliation on China from the mid-19th century onward, from the Opium Wars through the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. But that’s no excuse, critics say, for the current policy of complete kowtowing to the Chinese dictatorship.
Criticism surfaced in March, when Britain broke ranks with the United States by becoming the first European nation to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Although Britain’s finance ministry, the Treasury, congratulated itself on having stolen a march on Frankfurt in the race to become an offshore trading center for the Chinese currency, Washington was distinctly sniffy.
The decision, an unnamed senior administration official told the Financial Times, had been taken with ”virtually no consultation” with the United States, lamenting “a trend towards constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power.”
But it was Osborne’s trip to the troubled western Chinese province of Xinjiang that set “a new low,” according to Joan Smith, writing in the Independent. Human rights groups say China systematically suppresses the social, economic and religious rights of the region’s Muslim Uighurs, and Osborne’s trip came on the anniversary of the highly controversial trial and sentencing of moderate Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.
But that seemed to worry the British Chancellor not one bit, as Tom Phillips reported in the Guardian -- with Osborne promising to bring economic development to Xinjiang through British investment while blithely ignoring the argument that the benefits of development there have flowed overwhelmingly to China’s ethnic Han majority and may indeed have exacerbated ethnic tensions with the Uighurs.
China is now grappling with a rise in violence in Xinjiang, and former British diplomat Kerry Brown wrote that Britain lacks the expertise to invest in such a complex region and address the formidable political, economic and social challenges there.
“Amoral foreign policy has been a unique specialty of the U.K. for centuries,” Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney, wrote in The Diplomat, but went on to argue that this trip did not even make commercial sense. “As it is, there is the sneaking suspicion that Osborne went to Xinjiang not for commercial reasons, but to pander for political favor in Beijing. And that leads us to the depressing conclusion that it is not just British business and expertise that is for sale in China -- so is British government policy.”
British officials sometimes argue that their leaders are making the case for human rights with their Chinese counterparts in private rather than in public, but when pressed struggle to cite examples of when such a softly-softly approach has worked before. Indeed, human rights advocates are convinced there are none.
In a piece in The Spectator about Cameron's "craven surrender" to China, Jonathan Mirsky gives a revealing anecdote about how then-British Prime Minister John Major insisted to reporters he had forcefully raised the issue of political prisoners in a private meeting with his Chinese counterpart in 1991, despite -- as one official in the room later admitted -- having actually failed to even mention the issue.
To the British government, the policy might seem to be working. China’s state media certainly approves -- China Daily praised Osborne for his “pragmatic” approach, while a nationalist tabloid, the Global Times, said, “It should be diplomatic etiquette for foreign leaders not to confront China by raising the human rights issue,” adding: “Keeping a modest manner is the correct attitude for a foreign minister visiting China to seek business opportunities.”
But does Britain really want such a cozy relationship with an authoritarian state that systematically curbs the fundamental rights of its people, including their freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion, and under President Xi is engaged in a dramatic further crackdown on those rights? Or should it, in fact, be sticking up for the Chinese people, for the lawyers, activists and ordinary people who face imprisonment and even torture for expressing their views?
In an e-mail to The Washington Post, William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong, said Osborne’s Xinjiang trip had been a public relations coup for Beijing, while Cameron’s efforts to ingratiate himself with the Chinese after the Dalai Lama had played into Beijing’s hands.
“Historically, China has been very adept at 'punishing' countries that bring up human rights too forcefully, putting them in the dog house, and then forcing them to 'repair' the damaged relationship through obsequious and overly reverential grovelling acts, which are then handsomely rewarded,” he wrote. “And strategically, the Chinese government has tried to use these examples as warnings to other countries.
“However, the backlash in the public and in the media to Osborne's Xinjiang visit shows that many people in Britain and around the world expect that their leaders should speak out in a principled, respectful, and forceful way -- both in public and private."
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