Let’s be honest. Awaking every morning to yet another headline about Donald Trump’s latest ‘world-changing’ policy is… exhausting. One day, he’s shifting the global order, the next he’s ripping up trade rules. Rinse and repeat – first as tragedy, then as farce.
China has responded at pace to the confected drama. As the Chinese government met for its annual Two Sessions plenary in early spring, Trump had been in post just a few weeks. Yet the major geopolitical shifts were already impossible to ignore. Britain once again finds itself caught between two poles: the diplomatic broker that uses soft power and politesse to look west and east simultaneously. Many geopolitical analyses hold that this is our optimal place in the world – the geographical and metaphorical middle. Yet as the US and China remain entangled in a trade war, the question for UK-China relations is: are we truly in control, or merely reacting to forces beyond our influence? Is China in our hands?
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