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UK is another dying beggar at Chinese mercy

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http://m.sohu.com/n/556406781/?wscrid=15084_3


专家驳有媒体称英国是经济乞讨者:无意义的猜忌
10-21 19:29 澎湃
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中英关系“黄金时代”的开启是当前国际社会中一件极具震撼力的大事。对于中英两国关系迅速走近,有人欢喜有人忧。中英两国主流观念充分肯定了双方深度交往的必要性。然而,英国国内的一些媒体,甚至西方媒体,对此颇有微词,认为英国是在向中国“卑躬屈膝”,在强大的中国面前英国只是个经济“乞讨者”。在中英双方领导层努力推进双边关系的情形下,一味批判而未提出建设性意见只能被看做是“搅局者”。

这种不同意见的表达体现了一些英国人甚至西方人的担忧,不过仔细分析会发现,这种担忧是其固有的思维定势引发的。在这些人眼中,西方体制必然优于中国,中国的某些行为不符合他们的观念便视为不正当。如若持有此类观念来猜忌刚刚起步的中英关系,势必会不利于中英各领域合作的进展,进而损害两国利益。

在这些批评意见中,人权常被那些政治批评者当做行之有效的攻击武器,无论何时何地都要拿出来加以评说。在某些英国人看来,人权必须在习近平主席访英期间提出探讨,他们想方设法把这个问题搬上台面,在他们看来这样会产生震撼效果,会让中国难看。10月18日,刘晓明大使在英国BBC“安德鲁·马尔访谈”节目中就中国投资英国核电站和人权等问题进行回应,有理有据地驳斥了这些看似有理但不切实际的论点。

回击这些嘈杂声不单单是中国官方的任务,英国主流媒体同样需要作出回应。为回击“卑躬屈膝说”,10月19日,英国《金融时报》发表社评认为“英国隆重欢迎习近平没错”。可以看出,中英两国的主流意见共同回击了对双边关系发展不利的舆论,成功地为习近平主席访英扫清了道路。

事实上,中英关系发展不应时时刻刻都要陷入这种争论之中。这样的争论既没有实际意义,也无法解决现实问题。近年来中英合作的实践表明:如若陷入这种议题争论中,合作总会停滞,甚至会倒退;如若搁置争议在相关领域展开务实合作,总会取得显著成果,双方受益。在中英关系发展的“黄金时代”,中英之间必须找到一种行之有效的方法解决这种政治困境,以使双边关系健康、长久发展下去。

认识问题所在是顺利解决问题的关键。中英在很多领域对问题的认识并无太多的不同,分歧的关键领域在于政治观念上。有些时候,中英之间的矛盾实则是缺乏政治互信所致。中英都是国际社会中具有影响力的大国,都建立了现代政党政治体制,都发展出了各自的政治理性,不应以理论上的制度优劣作为衡量标准,更多地需要看重治理国家的实效。在中英关系步入“黄金时代”的道路上,双方必须要建立政治互信,这就要求中英双方了解和理解对方的政治思维习惯,用对方的眼光看待对方。

中英双方应理性看待批评之声。在英国,批评政府被看做是自由民主的内在品质。有些时候,无论理由是否充分,一个反对了事。英国反对党几百年来的反对实践已经蕴含在政事处理上。中国政府并非从不接受批评,中国人讲究的是一个度。时刻批评和随意批评有失君子风范。中国政府缺乏的不是批评,而是有行之有效的、解决问题的建议。因此,对于一些没有实际建议的批评之声,双方都应泰然处之。

中英双方应认识到改革模式是有效的政治发展模式。目前,中国正在开放环境下深化改革。这种改革不是休克疗法,也不是在规定时间内完成,因为改革道路是一种进程,永无止境。对于这点,想必英国人深有体会。英国的政治体制改革经历了数百年之久,每次改革都是点滴进步。英国人在历史上推翻了君主制,几经波折又回到君主制上来。事实上,革命的思维方式在中英两国都不会再有了,改革才是政治制度发展的有效模式。

中英双方应认识到各自的政治实践经验并不适用于对方。中英两国政府面对的是不同的治理环境。超过13亿人和只有6000多万人的国家相比,治理的难度不只是一个量的问题,有时更多地是质的问题。即便是那些在各自看来好的做法,如果移植到对方的治理环境中,效果并不必然达到预期。当然对于那些好的做法,中英双方应自愿借鉴,而非强制推行。

中英双方应及时沟通,了解对方所需,做到优势互补。中英制度、历史、文化、发展阶段不同并非是件坏事,相反不同的制度碰撞才能创新。一方面,能够从对方身上寻找到自身需要的东西,这将是中英合作受益最大的地方。另一方面,在对方需要的时候向对方提供所需,这是全面战略伙伴关系的应有之意。中英关系的发展应相互借鉴,做到优势互补,发展出适合中英双方的“特殊关系”。

随着中英关系“黄金时代”的到来,双方不应停留在了解政治观念差异上,更应从实际上建立相应的机制推进政治互信。在双方建立经济、文化交流机制并顺利实施后,政治交流机制必须提上日程。一个行之有效的政治交流机制必然会夯实中英关系“黄金时代”的根基,使双边关系走得更稳更远。
 

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/21/nuclear-power-deal-china-uk



This nuclear power deal with China is one of the maddest ever struck

Polly Toynbee
The decision to allow China to build nuclear power stations in the UK is sheer folly, especially at a time when Cameron is shutting the door on renewable energy


An artist’s impression of how the new Hinkley Point C station will look. Photograph: EDF Energy/PA
Wednesday 21 October 2015 12.44*BST Last modified on Wednesday 21 October 2015 17.25*BST

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The grand kowtow continues its humiliating progress today, but beggars can’t be choosers. The Queen and all her family – good grief, even the Duke of York – are rolled out as the golden words flow. Britain always risks being a figure of fun as it grasps at the coat-tails of the great powers: enough leaks from our American cousins have revealed how often our “special relationship” dream has been mocked in Washington. What snickers echo in Beijing’s labyrinths of power?


Britain 'sucking up' to China is a national humiliation, says PM's former adviser
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Red carpets for tyrants, dictators, feudal sheikhs and torturers of every hue – the Queen has been obliged to smile upon them all. Remember, she had Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu to stay in 1978 at Jim Callaghan’s behest: after parading with her in her open-topped carriage, he returned home with two labradors, later seen riding round Bucharest in their own limousine as his people starved. Ethical diplomacy? An oxymoron dispelled so often by “needs must”.

Today is the big sign-up, as Mont Blanc pens are put to one of the maddest deals ever struck by any government, let alone by David Cameron, who has the word “security” on a repeat key for every speech. A Chinese state-controlled company, with a minority French state partner, will build (and control) massive nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point, Bradwell in Essex and Sizewell. British intelligence agency sources are said to be so concerned that they have let it be known in public that they can never know what hidden capabilities are built into the plants’ software.

On the one hand, the government needs four new Trident subs to protect us from unknown – Chinese? – future nuclear foes in a dangerous world. But on the other hand Cameron and Osborne are nonchalant about the blatant risk of the Chinese planting undetectable devices that could, say, blow up the plants, with which to blackmail us if they chose. Peter Mandelson blithely says that if ever the Chinese used that leverage they would forfeit their world investments – but we are talking about a hypothetical war footing. If that’s too outlandish to worry about, what’s the point of Trident? Cameron can do one or other of these nuclear programmes, but logically not both.

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These nuclear power plans are bizarre in every way. Hinkley Point will be the most expensive plant in the world, at £24bn. To pay for it, monumental subsidies lasting until 2060 will dwarf any PFI ever devised. Osborne begs the Chinese to pay for this and for HS2 as well on a never–never bill for our grandchildren, when we could borrow the money at negligible interest and be in hock to no one. But his damaging fiscal charter allows no such investment.

The Chinese get a guaranteed price of £92.50 per megawatt hour – double the usual price. But even with this walloping sweetener of a profit stream, no other company would touch it. So why, exactly, do the Chinese want it?

This huge subsidy will be added to our energy bills. Yet the government has just slashed a far lower £9-a-year subsidy for wind and solar power, saying they want to relieve householders of that burden. Nuclear may be a desirable small part of the energy mix as we get closer to black- and brownouts, but only if the price matches other technologies. How perverse to axe support for wind and solar just as it nears viability. As Patrick Barkham explains, solar subsidies could be gradually withdrawn but are needed now. As it is, the sudden 87% slash in subsidy is sending solar and wind companies crashing. Onshore wind is destroyed by the government’s refusal to grant planning permission. Even offshore wind companies are being frozen out. Ecotricity, a green provider, says almost all UK electricity could be supplied by renewables by 2030. With a little gas backup, UK electricity could be virtually emissions-free.


Solar power in crisis: 'My panels generate enough power for two loads of washing'
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If the gigantic, risky investment in these nuclear plants were diverted to a green energy industry rush, the rewards would be immense and Britain’s reputation as a vanguard not a laggard on climate change would be invaluable. Soft power is better than kowtowing to hard power. The UN’s chief scientist, Professor Jacquie McGlade, warned this week that Britain’s cuts to renewable subsidies put us at odds with the unprecedented pledges made by 150 other countries for the Paris climate change summit in December: she calls it “a very perverse signal”.

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Visit Black Ditch, the site just near Hinkley Point where the government turned down an application for wind turbines, as they do all wind applications. It’s a scrappy bit of ex-industrial land beside a motorway, under Hinkley Point’s pylons. Let that stand as a symbol for the folly of the vast and risky nuclear plan, displacing wiser green investments.

What people still don’t get about the Cameron/Osborne regime is how virtually every decision springs from a random set of extreme ideologies. Instinctive loathing of “green crap”, including wind and solar power, is one. Embracing some monster building projects, especially nuclear, regardless of cost or worth, is another. But their vaulting ambition for grand projects can only come with soaring off-the-books debt, despite all the lectures on austerity and balanced budgets.
 

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...und-begging-in-Chinese-city-of-Guangzhou.html



British man found begging in Chinese city of Guangzhou






Andrew Steven was spotted outside the Guangzhou zoo metro station
Picture: REX FEATURES
By Malcolm Moore, Shanghai
2:29PM GMT 20 Nov 2011
A British man has drawn the curiosity of locals in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou after being spotted begging outside a metro station.

The man, thought to be in his 40s and named as Andrew Steven by the Chinese media, was spotted shivering and holding a note asking for money outside the metro station for Guangzhou zoo.

Beggars are relatively uncommon on Chinese streets and Mr Steven quickly drew a small crowd of onlookers. He received 130 yuan (£13) of donations in six hours.

"I am not begging, but I need help," he told the Guangzhou Information Times newspaper. "I was on my way to Hong Kong a few days ago and I was robbed of my mobile phone, laptop, wallet, and clothes. Fortunately I had my passport on me," he said.

According to the newspaper, Mr Steven has been resident in China for two years, during which he taught English at a university in Hunan province and then at a school in Nanjing.

The police in Shenzhen, where he was robbed, had helped him travel to Guangzhou, the site of the nearest British consulate, the newspaper said.

A spokesman for the British consulate said it could not comment on an individual case. However, Mr Steven said the consulate had not given him financial assistance.

"I'm waiting for my mum to wire me money through Western Union," he told the Information Times. "I do not have enough money to get through today. I have been here appealing for help since this afternoon."

The Chinese media noted that he was unable to provide the receipt to show he had lodged a case with the police.
 

THE_CHANSTER

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By Malcolm Moore, Shanghai
2:29PM GMT 20 Nov 2011

if you're gonna report news worthy events at least make them current and relevant. This piece of bullshit has nothing to do with the Nuclear Power deal struck between the UK and China yesterday.

All countries will prostitute themselves for the right price.
 
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syed putra

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If you want to boost economy, invite foreign investors to participate. This is a good example.PAP have been doing this for decades.
 

whorejinx

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If you want to boost economy, invite foreign investors to participate. This is a good example.PAP have been doing this for decades.


Only greedy POOR IDIOTS do that. A strong confident and resourceful country / economy / people rejects all foreign INVESTMENTS and refuse to share any profits or opportunities with outsiders. When you open your door to them, they know that you lack resources skill experience capital ability and confident, like a baby looking for some one to clean your asshole after you Pangsai. So they happily come and fuck your asshole and be your master.
 

mojito

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What about TS? Are you a beggar at PAP mercy? Kneel. Kneel and you shall receive, my child.
 

yellowarse

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Full circle from the Treaty of Nanking. History has a way of making great nations and empires eat humble pie. No newspaperman worth his salt uses the phrase 'Great Britain' anymore; it's just 'Britain'.

Rome is just a quaint city today; the ancient Egyptians are no more. Baghdad is in ruins, and the Babylonians are extinct. Greek is bankrupt; so are Spain and Portugal. The Mongols are still only adjusting to life beyond the grasslands, and their descendants the Moghuls have only the Taj to commemorate their once-glorious reign.

Only civilizations that last thousands of years will weather the vicissitudes that mark the rise and fall of great powers. There aren't many around, and there's only one that has lasted continuously for 5 millennia. Guess which one.
 

Jah_rastafar_I

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Full circle from the Treaty of Nanking. History has a way of making great nations and empires eat humble pie. No newspaperman worth his salt uses the phrase 'Great Britain' anymore; it's just 'Britain'.

Rome is just a quaint city today; the ancient Egyptians are no more. Baghdad is in ruins, and the Babylonians are extinct. Greek is bankrupt; so are Spain and Portugal. The Mongols are still only adjusting to life beyond the grasslands, and their descendants the Moghuls have only the Taj to commemorate their once-glorious reign.

Only civilizations that last thousands of years will weather the vicissitudes that mark the rise and fall of great powers. There aren't many around, and there's only one that has lasted continuously for 5 millennia. Guess which one.

China and chinese?

Oh fuck ppl are going to be pissed because of this.
 

pegasus

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The sun never set on the Bitish empire for a few hundred years, and for good reason. The British were and still are master diplomats . They subjugated the Chinese with opium. There will soon be a new opiate. The Chinese are now drunk with power, fame and fortune and its getting to their heads. Diplomatic skills honed since historical times are part of the British DNA. The Chinese are novices at this. 5000 years of history and most of it behind closed doors when they were busy killing each other while the Brit sh conquered the world. Ang Moh are best as the Chinese will soon find out.
 

syed putra

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Only greedy POOR IDIOTS do that. A strong confident and resourceful country / economy / people rejects all foreign INVESTMENTS and refuse to share any profits or opportunities with outsiders. When you open your door to them, they know that you lack resources skill experience capital ability and confident, like a baby looking for some one to clean your asshole after you Pangsai. So they happily come and fuck your asshole and be your master.

Take away the refineries, the shipbuilders, the many regional offices of multinationals, the semiconductor facilities etc and Singapore is just a fishing village. US have been the no 1 beneficiary of foreign investors for a good reason. It help boost the economy.
 

yellowarse

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The sun never set on the Bitish empire for a few hundred years, and for good reason. The British were and still are master diplomats . They subjugated the Chinese with opium. There will soon be a new opiate. The Chinese are now drunk with power, fame and fortune and its getting to their heads. Diplomatic skills honed since historical times are part of the British DNA. The Chinese are novices at this. 5000 years of history and most of it behind closed doors when they were busy killing each other while the Brit sh conquered the world. Ang Moh are best as the Chinese will soon find out.

Bone up on your history, dickhead. Where were the Anglo-Saxons at the peak of Chinese civilization during the Tang Dynasty 1,400 years ago? The esteemed English language is only less than 1,000 years old!

When we talk about the British Empire on which the sun never sets, we're really talking about Britain's Imperial century, lasting from 1815 to 1914, established after the Napeolonic wars. A hundred years is a blip in history when you're talking about civilizations with ancient memories stretching back a few thousand years, like the ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Indic, and Chinese civilizations.

Did you know just as recently as 1875, China was still the world's largest economy, followed by the UK and India. The lead was only surrendered to the US in 1900. Not many people know that for more than 3/4 of the past 2 millennia, China was the world's pre-eminent economy. Despite the frequent wars and dynastic infighting, there were long periods of peace and prosperity that enabled trade and commerce to flourish between China and the rest of the world, and the growth of the arts, agriculture and various crafts and industry within.

Yes, China has gone a through 150 years of turmoil, humiliation and major social dislocations, but is now again rising to take up her position as first among equals. Then again, which civilization or nation has not gone through ebb and flow, rise and fall in its fortunes?

A couple of thousand years from now, China will still be there, in whatever form it might have morphed into. Britain (or England, if the other 3 nations secede)? Who knows.
 

frenchbriefs

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The sun never set on the Bitish empire for a few hundred years, and for good reason. The British were and still are master diplomats . They subjugated the Chinese with opium. There will soon be a new opiate. The Chinese are now drunk with power, fame and fortune and its getting to their heads. Diplomatic skills honed since historical times are part of the British DNA. The Chinese are novices at this. 5000 years of history and most of it behind closed doors when they were busy killing each other while the Brit sh conquered the world. Ang Moh are best as the Chinese will soon find out.

i think the sun set on the british empire long ago when they tried to replicate the days of colonial wealth by inviting every tom dick and harry billionaire and wealthy magnate in the 70s to set up residences in london.the first dumbass country to embrace the trickle down philosophy in economics.and margaret thatcher economics.

from superpower to superwelfare.do you know what is the number one entertainment in britain now?watching tv and reality tv shows about families and lazy unemployed bums living off welfare and sucking on the government tits.

[video=youtube;uoB-kSujpY4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoB-kSujpY4[/video]
 
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frenchbriefs

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Full circle from the Treaty of Nanking. History has a way of making great nations and empires eat humble pie. No newspaperman worth his salt uses the phrase 'Great Britain' anymore; it's just 'Britain'.

Rome is just a quaint city today; the ancient Egyptians are no more. Baghdad is in ruins, and the Babylonians are extinct. Greek is bankrupt; so are Spain and Portugal. The Mongols are still only adjusting to life beyond the grasslands, and their descendants the Moghuls have only the Taj to commemorate their once-glorious reign.

Only civilizations that last thousands of years will weather the vicissitudes that mark the rise and fall of great powers. There aren't many around, and there's only one that has lasted continuously for 5 millennia. Guess which one.

what culture does 5000 years of civilisation have?even dead civilisations have more culture.
 

yellowarse

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what culture does 5000 years of civilisation have?even dead civilisations have more culture.

Let's not begin about art and culture, in which the Chinese reached the apogee (Tang and Sung poetry reached its perfection even before the English language came into existence) more than a thousand years ago.

Let's talk about science and technology, something we associate with the West, but in actual fact the Western scientific enlightenment owed its beginnings to China. It's ironic that it had to take an ang moh Sinophile, Joseph Needham, to appreciate how much China has contributed to the world. (That's because many Chinese have become such internalized racists that they look down their own civilization and culture.) Needham devoted his entire life to the study of Chinese science and technology:

[h=1]History of science and technology in China[/h]
 

zeroo

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12043026_554270191393608_6695139333346886620_n.png
 

frenchbriefs

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Let's not begin about art and culture, in which the Chinese reached the apogee (Tang and Sung poetry reached its perfection even before the English language came into existence) more than a thousand years ago.

Let's talk about science and technology, something we associate with the West, but in actual fact the Western scientific enlightenment owed its beginnings to China. It's ironic that it had to take an ang moh Sinophile, Joseph Needham, to appreciate how much China has contributed to the world. (That's because many Chinese have become such internalized racists that they look down their own civilization and culture.) Needham devoted his entire life to the study of Chinese science and technology:

[h=1]History of science and technology in China[/h]

dont kid urself most of that culture is gone,most of it now is replaced by communist crap and propaganda,and a really lousy version of it.russia communist culture and music is so so much better than the china garbage.whatevers left of chinese culture is found in like other countries like japan and korea and overseas chinese communities.
 

yellowarse

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A very good article that should open the eyes of Sinkies here, Anglophiles and self-loathing Chinese alike.


OCT 19, 2015 @ 12:23 PM

A Radical Role Reversal -- Britain As China's Gateway To Europe


Jean-Pierre Lehmann ,
CONTRIBUTOR


640x0.jpg

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and his wife Peng Liyuan, arrive at Heathrow
Airport in west London on Oct. 19, for a four-day state visit.
(TOBY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images)

On the occasion of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s official visit to Britain this week, it is important to remember that when the Chinese speak of their past “era of humiliation,” 1839 to 1949, it was Britain that started and perpetuated it for several decades. In light of its own multiple abuses of human rights in China, it would be a serious mistake for anyone in Britain to lecture Xi (or any Chinese) on human rights; instead, in light of the past, Britain and China should aim to forge a new constructive relationship for the 21st century.

A Recapitulation

For much of recorded history, China was the world’s wealthiest nation. As recently as two centuries ago, it corresponded to 33% of global GDP. By 1950, its share had plummeted to 3.3%. This was the result of foreign and civil wars, imperialist exploitation, which in turn exacerbated a breakdown in governance. China became a “failed state.” Britain wrote a good deal of that narrative.

The first industrial revolution in the late 18th century occurred in Britain, not in China. Given China’s image (Marco Polo, etc) of great wealth and splendor, as well as its big population, British traders looked at the Chinese market with drooling envy – illustrated by the slogan: “if every Chinaman would add an inch of material to his shirttail, the mills of Lancashire could be kept busy for generations.”

Opium-War.jpg
Opening salvoes by British troops in China’s era of humiliation

In 1793, as flag sought to accompany trade, the first British envoy, Lord Macartney, was sent to engage China in trade negotiations. China, however, was closed, inward looking, autarkic, and contemptuous of “foreign devils.” While the British delegation were forced to “kowtow” to the Chinese court – taken from the Chinese word kētóu, literally to “knock head” (on the ground) or prostration – Beijing refused British demands on trade. Confrontation loomed. The British discovered a strong Chinese demand for opium – and the world’s best opium was grown and cultivated in the British colony of Bengal.

I have on several occasions on this blog strongly recommended the reading of the Bengali novelist Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy for the remarkable narrative of the activities, actors and ambience leading to the first Opium War (1839-1842). I hope this advice is being heeded!

Following the war, Hong Kong was made a colony, providing Britain’s “gateway to China.” It was ruled for 155 years, interrupted only by the Japanese occupation from Dec. 25, 1941 to Aug. 30, 1945, until Jun. 30, 1997 when it was “returned” to Chinese sovereignty.

After the first, there ensued a second Opium War (1856-1860), in which British and Indian forces were joined by the French – whose casus belliwas the beheading of a French missionary, Father Auguste Chapdelaine, who had infringed Chinese laws by entering forbidden territory (he was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000). Not only were Chinese soldiers and civilians brutally killed, but the invaders ransacked, pillaged and burnt to the ground the magnificent Summer Palace in Beijing: an act of hideous cultural vandalism.

Prior to the outbreak of the Opium War Canton’s Commissioner Lin Zexu wrote his “Letter of Advice to Queen Victoria”, pleading that she prohibit the opium trade. In the letter he makes the crucial point that as the sale of opium is prohibited in Britain, why impose it on China? Further, he appeals to her better moral judgment:

Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused. We have heard heretofore that your honorable ruler is kind and benevolent. Naturally you would not wish to give unto others what you yourself do not want.

It is not known whether Queen Victoria ever read the letter, but in any case she did not reply. Britain never had to experience the forced imposition of drugs from a foreign power, nor having invading Chinese troops marching down The Mall, nor was Buckingham Palace pillaged and burnt, as was the Summer Palace.

In order to avoid meddlesome Chinese laws, the victorious British imposed “extra-territoriality” on China, whereby their citizens could not be judged by Chinese courts, but by their own consular courts, which also applied to all Chinese accused of committing crimes against or alleged victims of crimes by Britons – a system adopted by all other Western powers and Japan.

Patti Waldmeir has recently written an excellent article, entitled “China looks back in anger at British justice,” which well describes the “injustice” and legal discrimination to which the Chinese were subjected on their own territory. Unlike India, Britain never colonized China (apart from Hong Kong), mainly because it did not have to: It could achieve its economic ends through informal imperialism without the costs of formal colonial administration. In Shanghai and other cities where there was a sizeable Western community, clubs, bars, restaurants, parks, leisure centers, were opened up from which Chinese were barred – except of course as servants. The Chinese were frequently made the butt of British racist jokes.

Following China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, the Western powers exacted more concessions from the Chinese government in the form of spheres of influence: Chunks of territory that were theoretically part of China but over which a given foreign power had exclusive economic rights. The British had extended their rule from the island of Hong Kong to include the peninsula of Kowloon in 1860 and then acquired the New Territories in 1898. In 1900, Britain participated in the brutal suppression of the Boxer Rebellion. Between 1903 and 1905, Britain, with the extensive use of Indian troops, invaded Tibet. With the development of colonies, establishment of plantations and exploitation of mines throughout the world there arose great demand for the supply of Chinese indentured labor, known as “coolies,” with which Britain was significantly involved.

All this should show quite categorically, emphatically and conclusively that Britain simply does not have the moral high ground from which it can lecture, let alone hector, the Chinese on human rights, as some have argued it should. First, it should recognize past crimes and express deepest apologies.

Towards a New 21st Century Britain-China Relationship

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CCTV News announcing Britain joining AIIB as founding member

In spite of the multiple past transgressions and humiliations against the Chinese by Britain, there is no sign today that although China has regained strength, it is out to wreak revenge. But the scars of past humiliations are there and the wounds could reopen and fester. Essentially China is looking for its place in the world and for sustainable governance. As Europeans should know from our own extremely turbulent and often violent past this is not easy.

It is clear that the 21st century will be in good part determined by the impact and implications of China’s re-emergence as a great global power. From 33% of global GDP before the first Opium War, plummeting to 3.3% a century later, today China has re-risen to 15%. China has vast global interests extending across all continents. With initiatives such as the New Silk Road (OBOR, One-Belt-One-Road) the process will continue. But in its development, China faces not only external challenges, but also domestic ones: social, demographic, cultural, spiritual, economic,financial, technological, environmental and political. Should China achieve its “peaceful rise,” it would be the first great power in history ever to have done so. The implications for the world today and for future generations are huge. For the West the objective should be to engage with China cooperatively in achieving that end, and emphatically not to seek to contain China or through humiliation ostracize it from the global community.

Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under President Truman, famously remarked that while “Great Britain has lost an empire, it has not yet found a role.” A role it could aspire to would be to serve as China’s gateway to Europe – financially, but also culturally, socially, scientifically, intellectually and politically.

Britain took an important step in that direction when it ignored Washington’s objections and became a founding member of the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). As Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne commented during his recent trip to China, Britain and China should “stick together and make a golden decade for both our countries.”

Britain’s advantages to being China’s gateway to Europe (and possibly to the West generally) include not only its financial services and expertise, but also its strong academic credentials and achievements. Already many Chinese students attend British schools and universities. Given the comparative strength of U.K. institutions of learning in Chinese studies, there is significant scope for academic collaboration and cross-fertilization.

Forging this new relationship will not necessarily be easy. There are great differences between the two countries, politically and socially, as well as economically, not to mention bitter legacies of the past. China can be prickly, as was made evident by the public exhibition of the Magna Carta recently in Beijing. But this potential role stands out as a great opportunity that Britain is well placed for and therefore should seize. There is good reason to believe that engaging China in this manner will not only atone for some of the wrongs committed by Britain against China in the past, but serve far more positively in the improvement of Chinese governance and human rights than would hypocritical lecturing and hectoring. In this sense, Britain could play a critically constructive role in fashioning a 21st century that would relinquish to past history the “era of humiliation” and contribute to building a dynamic, prosperous and peaceful 21st century founded on respect and cooperation between China and Europe.

 
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