Britain has made 'visionary' choice to become China's best friend, says Xi

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Britain has made 'visionary' choice to become China's best friend, says Xi

Tom Phillips in Beijing

On the eve of his first state visit to the UK, the Chinese president speaks in glowing terms about the prospect of closer ties between London and Beijing

Chinese president Xi Jinping praised Britain’s “visionary and strategic choice” to become Beijing’s best friend in the west as he prepared to jet off on his first state visit to the UK, taking with him billions of pounds of planned investment.

The trip, Xi’s first to Britain in more than two decades, has been hailed by British and Chinese officials as the start of a “golden era” of relations which the Treasury hopes will make China Britain’s second biggest trade partner within 10 years.

“The UK has stated that it will be the western country that is most open to China,” Xi told Reuters in a rare written interview published on the eve of his departure.

“This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain’s own long-term interest.”

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/18/britian-has-made-visionary-choice-to-become-chinas-best-friend-says-xi

-- The Guardian 2015.10.18

[LawrenceChee]

Toast to a great partnership

[zaphod reborn]

UK owned by China.

[Enoon]

Hooray! At last the UK has escaped the frying pan! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rej............

[Soutpeel]

UK owned by China.

They already own the US so whats your point ?

[JHolmesJr]

Usually when he gives a speech like this, jobs flow out of the uk to china….

[OMGImInPattaya]

This is the reward for only granting two week visas to dissident Chinese artists. The UK get owned!

[zaphod reborn]

UK owned by China.

They already own the US so whats your point ?

It's a double entendre. "to be owned" means to be embarrassed by someone, to be made a fool of. See, urban dictionary. China owns the US by owning it's debt. This leader just made a fool of the UK by speaking for them, thus he owned them.

[Scott]

An off-topic post has been removed. This is about the UK-China relationship.

[JetsetBkk]

UK owned by China.

They already own the US so whats your point ?

It's a double entendre. "to be owned" means to be embarrassed by someone, to be made a fool of. See, urban dictionary. China owns the US by owning it's debt. This leader just made a fool of the UK by speaking for them, thus he owned them.

Shouldn't that be "pwned"?

[Thongkorn]

Britain has long pioneered the fact that you have to talk, Even if you dont like who your talking to. Even terrorists, America should take a leaf out of Britain's book. Like it or loth it China is a world power,so trying to black them or shun them is stupid, just hope that there is mutual feelings towards each other's country.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Thongkorn

[LawrenceChee]

Britain have shown Long term foresight and the gentleman behaviour towards China

China is a Super power ...it's insane to not engage them and hope for the best

The start here is to build a mutually respectful relationship

[Publicus]

The French look on with a smirk while Germany watches from across the Channel with entertained amusement. The EU and the EMU see an unfortunately predictable consistency from over there.

Everyone wants to decouple from China – except Osborne

The chancellor’s charm offensive has impressed Beijing. But the powerhouse of the east is now exporting economic problems all over the world

The days when China’s ascent to global economic hegemony appeared assured, its appetite for exports insatiable, are long gone. Instead, Chinese influence on today’s global economy is making itself felt through a domino-tumble of devaluations, layoffs and recessions that stretches from Russia to Brazil to South Africa (all members, along with India, of the “Brics” group of emerging countries: an acronym coined by O’Neill).

As Citigroup’s Willem Buiter puts it, China is “a messy market economy of the state-capitalist/crony-capitalist variety, where policy ambitions are not matched with effective policy instruments and where macroeconomic management and financial crisis prevention and mitigation competence are in short supply”.

http://www.execreview.com/2015/09/everyone-wants-to-decouple-from-china-except-osborne/

The Gatley boy Jim O'Neill who is now Lord O'Neill and the commercial secretary to Osborne is the former chief economist of Goldman Sachs who years ago coined the term Brics to champion the now submerging but then emerging markets.

Indeed, O'Neill announced on this auspicious occasion of Xi's visit the UK's donation of GBP 3 million to Xi ostensibly to further "the great game" in the CCP China, i.e., world football. Ironic indeed as the great game in China is to make its former nemesis UK finally kowtow to the throne of the Middle Kingdom. That it should be under the (great great) granddaughter of Victoria is all the greater and sweeter.

China will not disappear no matter what the many crashes and collapses it is currently entering may do to it. So the CCP Boyz in Beijing are simply gleeful someone is hitching up with them at the exact time the CCP's star is burning out and so many others are fleeing its reverse midas touch. UK won't disappear either, not unless Scotland should finally edge in the opposite direction, which then would take the "United" out of Kingdom. Either way, however, the Big Boyz in Beijing can now have themselves a new vassal state, this time its arch-nemesis of old and right there in Europe.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Publicus

[Publicus]

Britain have shown Long term foresight and the gentleman behaviour towards China

China is a Super power ...it's insane to not engage them and hope for the best

The start here is to build a mutually respectful relationship

China is a Super power

Superpower or Superdreamer.

China GDP per capita 1960-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast The Gross Domestic Product per capita in China was last recorded at 3865.88 US dollars in 2014. The GDP per Capita in China is equivalent to 31 percent of the world's average.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/

Generals and admirals in the CCP China are appointed on the basis of party loyalty far and above anything else.

That is no superpower. Big, yes, but China has always been big and China has always failed. It's chronic. So maybe the Brits have their own takeover ideas over time and in their own time.

[Scott]

This topic is not just about China. It is about the relationship between Britain and China.

Please stay on topic and keep the discussion relevant to the thread.

[NeverSure]

China is an alligator that eats everything in its path and countries that get into bed with it lose. Ask Australia or Brazil.

It isn't a super power. Publicus linked that its GDP per capita is only 31% of the world's average. As an example, its people have only about 1/7th the personal annual income of an American.

The UK is struggling and must be grasping at straws. The people of the UK have only about 80% of the income of the average American. How could lowly China help that? (LINK to above statements.)

Unless the UK can figure out how to sell items of added value such as manufactured goods to China, there couldn't be much in this for the UK. China usually plays the other way around.

Cheers.

[soalbundy]

China is an alligator that eats everything in its path and countries that get into bed with it lose. Ask Australia or Brazil.

It isn't a super power. Publicus linked that its GDP per capita is only 31% of the world's average. As an example, its people have only about 1/7th the personal annual income of an American.

The UK is struggling and must be grasping at straws. The people of the UK have only about 80% of the income of the average American. How could lowly China help that? (LINK to above statements.)

Unless the UK can figure out how to sell items of added value such as manufactured goods to China, there couldn't be much in this for the UK. China usually plays the other way around.

Cheers.

somebody once said Britain loses every battle except for the last one. The UK has vast international experience, a lot due to dealing with its huge empire which, although now non existent, has given it's cumbersome patient civil service a great deal of knowledge in how to manage even the inscrutable Chinese. The knowledge, unlike the empire, isn't lost, it lies slumbering in files waiting to be read, and read they are.

[reptile91602]

Isn't the UK already loaded with too much Chinese maid crap. The US sure is. Hope they enjoy all the leaded toys and crap that breaks after 10 minutes in greater and greater quantity.

[cockatoowho]

Previously Russia and India now Britain, funny that, just as the "Conspiracy Theorists" reported with the formation of the New World Order. However they are only people that wear tin foil hats, or that is what many timid litle members on this forum would want you to believe.

[empireboy]

Good move!

[Soutpeel]

China is an alligator that eats everything in its path and countries that get into bed with it lose. Ask Australia or Brazil.

It isn't a super power. Publicus linked that its GDP per capita is only 31% of the world's average. As an example, its people have only about 1/7th the personal annual income of an American.

The UK is struggling and must be grasping at straws. The people of the UK have only about 80% of the income of the average American. How could lowly China help that? (LINK to above statements.)

Unless the UK can figure out how to sell items of added value such as manufactured goods to China, there couldn't be much in this for the UK. China usually plays the other way around.

Cheers.

And in real terms what is the per capita debt of the average american ?....the numbers i have seen indicate an average of around USD 14k

Besides per capita income had absolutely no bearing on being classed as a super power anyway...the USSR was most certainly a super power and one supposes their per capita income was low as well

As regards average income comparison - average UK salary is around GDP 27000k ($40k odd) while average US salary pa is around $ 45k,

now i am no bank teller from Oregon but that would equate to around 12% difference not 20% as you have stated

[bangon04]

“This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain’s own long-term interest.”

now they just have to balance their time between being the lackeys of the US and the lackeys of the PRC.

At least "Great" Britain doesn't have to worry about offending the EU. They have already mastered that concept successfully.

Whore of the western world....

[Baerboxer]

UK owned by China.

Australia already is! USA debt is massive to China. They needed an "asset" in Europe and Britain is the best bet.

[Rykbanlor]

Isn't the UK already loaded with too much Chinese maid crap. The US sure is. Hope they enjoy all the leaded toys and crap that breaks after 10 minutes in greater and greater quantity.

No, we had a Chinese maid, and she was kind enough to crap in the toilet

[Baerboxer]

“This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain’s own long-term interest.”

now they just have to balance their time between being the lackeys of the US and the lackeys of the PRC.

At least "Great" Britain doesn't have to worry about offending the EU. They have already mastered that concept successfully.

Whore of the western world....

Whore of the Western world - no France beat them to that a long while ago with their arms for anyone, bending of all EU rules to suit themselves, and slush funds.

Germany would like to be there, as Siemens and VW would agree.

Italy is full or corruption whilst Spain, Greece and Portugal still think the world owes them a living.

[Baerboxer]

The French look on with a smirk while Germany watches from across the Channel with entertained amusement. The EU and the EMU see an unfortunately predictable consistency from over there.

Everyone wants to decouple from China – except Osborne

The chancellor’s charm offensive has impressed Beijing. But the powerhouse of the east is now exporting economic problems all over the world

The days when China’s ascent to global economic hegemony appeared assured, its appetite for exports insatiable, are long gone. Instead, Chinese influence on today’s global economy is making itself felt through a domino-tumble of devaluations, layoffs and recessions that stretches from Russia to Brazil to South Africa (all members, along with India, of the “Brics” group of emerging countries: an acronym coined by O’Neill).

As Citigroup’s Willem Buiter puts it, China is “a messy market economy of the state-capitalist/crony-capitalist variety, where policy ambitions are not matched with effective policy instruments and where macroeconomic management and financial crisis prevention and mitigation competence are in short supply”.

http://www.execreview.com/2015/09/everyone-wants-to-decouple-from-china-except-osborne/

The Gatley boy Jim O'Neill who is now Lord O'Neill and the commercial secretary to Osborne is the former chief economist of Goldman Sachs who years ago coined the term Brics to champion the now submerging but then emerging markets.

Indeed, O'Neill announced on this auspicious occasion of Xi's visit the UK's donation of GBP 3 million to Xi ostensibly to further "the great game" in the CCP China, i.e., world football. Ironic indeed as the great game in China is to make its former nemesis UK finally kowtow to the throne of the Middle Kingdom. That it should be under the (great great) granddaughter of Victoria is all the greater and sweeter.

China will not disappear no matter what the many crashes and collapses it is currently entering may do to it. So the CCP Boyz in Beijing are simply gleeful someone is hitching up with them at the exact time the CCP's star is burning out and so many others are fleeing its reverse midas touch. UK won't disappear either, not unless Scotland should finally edge in the opposite direction, which then would take the "United" out of Kingdom. Either way, however, the Big Boyz in Beijing can now have themselves a new vassal state, this time its arch-nemesis of old and right there in Europe.

You are joking - right? France and Germany will be furious to have missed the opportunity to promote themselves. Britain upset China when clown Cameron met the Dalai Lama. 18 months of the big freeze treatment. The Chinese UK Ambassador told the UK it was lagging behind - and he meant when compared to other EU countries. Osborne must have listened, took notice and done something about it.

I've done business in China since 1990. The Chinese, shrewd, patient and long term thinkers, used to be critical of the British being too reserved and uptight. France and Germany were much more proactive, and aggressive, in pushing their nations interests in bi-lateral relations. The Chinese told me they found the French untrustworthy, the Germans arrogant and rude, and the British too quiet and conservative thinking, living in the past.

China and America are too inter twinned to really fall out, even though Putin's Russia would love to drive a wedge. Aussie is a Chinese raw material supplier and very dependent. China wants a European partner and sees UK as the one that fits closest.

My learned Chinese friends, academics and business contacts used to say that China saw the big financial centers being USA, UK and China. That was 20 or so years ago. That was their forecast for 30-50 years in the future.

India is cushing up to the US and has visions of becoming a world power. I worked and lived their for a couple of years. They are miles behind China and loosing ground. Too many political self interest lobbies and one of the most corrupt countries out.

[Chicog]

Well I know Cameron is a terrible apple polisher and all, but what has happened to BRIC? Haven't heard a peep out of them for months.

[LawrenceChee]

China in its last decade has played some very strategic cards from separating business and trade partnerships and also ensuring its place in the world politics is noticed

There are some countries with trusted status as a resource provider , Thailand, Australia and NZ stand among them

Some countries are basically resource Centres with no political involvement ...most of the business done in Africa reflects that

And then there are some which are strategic , tie ins with European neighbours , Russia and USA . UK is at the forefront of it all as among all of its European trading partners , the Chinese respect the Brits probably the most.

There is no country out there that can really boast ...we don't want to do any business with China. That's silly politics

No matter which country , there are some skeletons hiding in the closet and the Chinese are now learning how to play the cards well on the international front

[farangmick]

I just hope that this is Britain finally trying to engage in realpolitik. Too many years, too much money, and especially too many lives wasted in an "ethical foreign policy" to make Blair, Brown and Cameron look good on the world stage. Hate to say it, but learn from the French. British politicians should put British interests first and foremost.

[Publicus]

Britain have shown Long term foresight and the gentleman behaviour towards China

China is a Super power ...it's insane to not engage them and hope for the best

The start here is to build a mutually respectful relationship

China is a Super power

Superpower or Superdreamer.

China GDP per capita 1960-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast The Gross Domestic Product per capita in China was last recorded at 3865.88 US dollars in 2014. The GDP per Capita in China is equivalent to 31 percent of the world's average.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/

Generals and admirals in the CCP China are appointed on the basis of party loyalty far and above anything else.

That is no superpower. Big, yes, but China has always been big and China has always failed. It's chronic. So maybe the Brits have their own takeover ideas over time and in their own time.

Perhaps not a superpower in the military sense, although growing daily, it would be a mistake to underestimate their power fiscally. It has long been said, "do not wake the sleeping dragon". I believe the UK are entertaining ideas of riding the dragon. Good luck.

People who have not lived for any length of time in China need to understand that the thinking and the concept of time are completely different there. They are more than happy to wait to achieve their goals, but, achieve them they will. Have no doubt of that. Who remembers Tibet? Do you ever think the situation there will be reversed? Do you think that they will lose in the South China Seas?

Sure the yanks will sail their warships up and down and the Chinese will wave at them as they go by. And wait and build a little more. And smile a little more.

People who have not lived for any length of time in China

Then there are those who have lived in the CCP China for an appreciable length of time, some more than others, some less, but day to day over a period of more than several years which does award certain qualifications to speak in these matters.

The post you quote speaks to GDP per capita, i.e,. the economy, and to the military, which are the standard measurements of a superpower. The CCP does not measure up, period.

As Citigroup’s Willem Buiter puts it, "China is a messy market economy of the state-capitalist/crony-capitalist variety, where policy ambitions are not matched with effective policy instruments." Translated from the Gerlish, China's subjective ambitions do not correspond to its material or objective, real, programs, projects, approaches. In short, the CCP Boyz in Beijing are dreamers who have no or minimum contact with China's actual reality or with global realities wither economic or military. Then there is CCP China "soft power" which is the miserable failure globally that is is because it is top down, which reveals yet another and more unrealistic and more wrongheaded thinking in Beijing.

do not wake the sleeping dragon"

The dragon is of course a figure from fiction, storytelling, fantasy, make-believe. It is unfortunate to see the UK also taking seriously its legend of St. George who, in slaying his make-believe dragon, is also a doer of fantasy. The Brits even put the fantasy on the Union Jack.

The Brits (and others) might want to look at the just published The Hundred-Year Marathon (Henry Holt and Co., 2015) by Dr. Michael Pillsbury who is senior fellow and director for China Strategy at the Hudson Institute in New York and Sydney. Dr. Pillsbury presents that China has a long-term marathon strategy to supplant the United States as the sole superpower by 2049. If successful, Pillsbury argues that China will reshape the world into one that will “nurture autocracies,” “rewrit[e] history to defam[e] the West and prais[e] China,” sell its own highly polluting development model to other countries, and constrain the political space for international organizations (195).

According to the globally respected China expert Dr. Elizabeth Economy at the private Council on Foreign Relations in New York, "In the end, whether you agree with Pillsbury or not, the book is well worth a careful read." http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/chinas-secret-plan-to-supplant-the-united-states/

The CCP studies closely Nazi German to identify where it went wrong, which was that it was too small a country to conquer the world militarily. CCP in its self-assigned genius also knows where the Brits went wrong, which is that parliamentary democracy cannot sustain empire, that in fact, parliamentary democracy necessarily dictated the end of the British Empire and of all Western empires. The CCP Dictators are self-satisfied they are self-liberated from each inherently fatal flaw.

The great delusion of the CCP Dictators in Beijing is that they continue to believe history continues to be a dynamic of empires rising and falling. The CCP Dictators cite the collapse of the British Empire which the sun harshly decided to abandon. The CCP Dictators further believe the USA is falling and that the CCP Dictators in Beijing are rising. One failure of this ancient mindset is that the Boyz fail to recognize the Soviet Union was in fact the world's final empire. The CCP China thus remains the eternal China has been that never was. The way things are developing in the UK the Brits are the has been that never will be again. Kaput.