Kyiv us a break, Beijing tells UN Security Council

CCP issues fourth appeal for Hong Kong dissidents in UK; Britain signals willingness to defend Taiwan

Observing China is the essential newsletter to understand the UK-PRC relationship, explained in the context of global developments.

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Beijing’s benefit from its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 came at the expense of certain industries in many countries around the world, as leaders from Washington to Auckland know all too well. But the decision to import mounds of Chinese goods at low prices was made consciously. In the past week we have seen some of these leaders, such as Donald Trump, President of the United States (US) and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, hold talks with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to discuss how bilateral trade can move forwards – with a more prudent approach towards protecting economic security than was perhaps employed in the aftermath of the PRC’s accession to the WTO.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom (UK) maintains its somewhat discordant approach to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Last week, I attended a programme arranged by the Great Britain-China Centre aimed at training up the future leaders of Westminster on the PRC, and one of the lecturers summed it up rather well, if with a little hyperbole: ‘If you were to ask the Treasury, they would tell you that China is a dear friend, but if you ask the Ministry of Defence, they would tell you that we are at war with each other’.

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