UK reflects on trade with China

As Chinese New Year celebrations draw to an end, Britain reflects on its trade ties with China. Rooted in a history of maritime trade that began over a century ago with tea and porcelain, we look at how far trade relations have developed between the two countries.

The UK has embraced Chinese New year, hosting spring festival celebrations for one of its most significant populations. But some of the festivities have taken place in rather unconventional settings. The Cutty Sark ship is Britain's last surviving tea clipper and has now been transformed into a maritime museum. Unconventional celebrations maybe, but not unusual. The Cutty Sark's Learning Manager, Catherine Stevenson, explains that the ship's ties with China are vast.

Catherine Stevenson, Cutty Sark Learning Manager, said, "The Cutty Sark was built for the China Tea trade, so she's an emblem of trade between Britain and china, she was built in 1869 for the purpose of going to china and bringing back tea from China to Britain."

As part of London's Chinese New Year celebrations, visitors are invited here to the Cutty Sark to learn about Britain and China's maritime history. And it was on clipper ships like this one, that it all began.

Though early on, there were some difficulties.

Dr. Kent Deng, China & East Asia Historian, said, "The beginning wasn't very bright, simply because although China could offer a lot of things that the British really wanted to buy such as tea, porcelain, silk and some cotton goods, the English side suffered heavily with trade deficit and so they began the opium trade."

Over the centuries, trade between Britain and China has grown and developed beyond maritime links. In 2010 Britain's Prime Minster David Cameron led the largest trade delegation to China for over 200 years. Now China is the largest export market of the BRIC economies for the UK - and its exports to Britain are double that of India.

Stewart Ferguson, Head Of Research, China-Britain Business Council, said, "In the last 5 years we've seen UK exports to china double and a similar increase from china exporting to the UK, however they are quite different sometimes in the commodities which we are seeing being traded between the two countries. From a UK perspective the growth is particularly automotive, cars, parts for cars and more recently in the last couple of years, consumer goods."

Though Chinese New Year celebrations across to globe are drawing to a close, the importance of the import and export market between the country and Europe continues to live on. British-Chinese trade is rooted in a great deal of history and routed with China at the helm of the BRIC export markets to the UK, experts believe the future trade outlook between the two countries is a positive one.