With his careful discourse of engagement, Rishi Sunak is forced to compensate for the anti-Beijing hawks in his party. But just who ended the ‘golden age’ of UK-China relations?
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pronounced the "Golden Age" of relations with China to have ended in a landmark address last week. Despite his call for engagement with Beijing, he nonetheless labeled it as a rival and a danger to "British values".
Such a "Golden Age" was a hallmark of his Conservative predecessors, particularly the David Cameron administration, which regarded Beijing as a trade and investment opportunity for Britain. Boris Johnson expressed similar sentiments until the US put a stop to it.
The right-wing, anti-China MPs in Sunak's party continued to call him "weak" despite the tough-sounding speech, and even worse, Labour accused him of making a U-turn. That is because Sunak appeared to be an ultra-hawk on China during the Conservative leadership election and said that it was t...