UK shows how West must be open to business with China
There were emotional scenes as President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, waved while their limousine swept out of Albert Square in Manchester at the conclusion of their weeklong state visit to the UK. [Special coverage]
Thousands of Chinese, many of them local students, surrounded the square in front of the city's town hall, a symbol of Britain's Victorian industrial power, where the couple had just had lunch with civic leaders. They shouted, "Xi Dada! Xi Dada", a term of endearment, referring to him as uncle.
This was no manufactured nationalism, as some of the British media had suggested, but reflected both a youthful nationalism and a confidence in the new direction of the country.
Apart from South African president Nelson Mandela nearly two decades ago, you would have to go back to perhaps 1977 to witness such crowd scenes for a foreign leader's visit. It was then that US president Jimmy Carter famously ventured to another northern English city - Newcastle upon Tyne.
Xi's visit was a redefining one in many ways. With agreement on about 30 billion pounds ($45.94 billion) of investment in major projects including nuclear power and high-speed rail, the UK was making the statement that the West had to be open to business with China.
The United States' closest ally was also sending a message that the world has now changed fundamentally, that you cannot ignore China's rise to be the world's second-largest economy, but should instead embrace and work with China, and that the UK was going to lead the way with a new "golden era" of relations.
The latest issue of The Economist magazine makes clear this is considered a brave move. "Rarely has a visiting head of state been granted such a tour - but then rarely has a British government staked so much on one relationship," it concluded.
'A momentous shift'
The Financial Times said on Friday that the visit "marks a momentous geopolitical shift" and concluded that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, whose September visit to Beijing prepared the ground for the visit, was taking a gamble that could secure London's future prosperity and "end up being particularly successful". But it questioned the timing, with China's economy slowing.
Some, such as Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard University and author of the recently published Kissinger: 1923-1968 The Idealist, believe that it's Britain, and not the United States, that now has the right approach to China.
"Many people I have spoken to in Beijing feel frustrated at the lack of clarity in US strategy," he said.
"I know that Kissinger, for one, believes there is only one way forward for US and China relations, and that is for them to be close and amicable, and I am hoping that Washington perhaps takes their key from London."
The best-selling author said that much of the debate about China's new role in the world ignores the fact that Beijing needs the West's help if it is to get through imminent and key stages in its development.
"The challenges that China's leaders face are daunting, and we need to be sympathetic to them as they try and grapple with them. The British approach is the constructive one."
