The FCO's strategy document offers three pillars for Britain's response to the challenges of the domestic and global economic slowdown. The first is "ensuring the UK has the right domestic policies in place to benefit from China's growth." It identifies a number of areas for cooperation between the two countries such as trade, investment, energy security, environmental protection and development assistance. China and Britain issued a joint statement on strengthening cooperation to address the global financial crisis during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Britain from January 31 to February 2. They also signed cooperative agreements in the fields of trade, investment, electric power, communications, intellectual property rights and urban development.

Improving the climate for cooperation

The stable development of China-Britain political relations over the past years has created a positive political atmosphere for Britain's release of the strategy document. Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 was a milestone in the two countries' efforts to resolve their historical issues. In October last year, the British Government explicitly recognized that Tibet is part of China's territory, the first recognition of China's sovereignty over Tibet given by the British Government in more than a century. Thanks to these moves, there are no longer any historical issues between China and Britain. Their relations are now at a new historical starting point from which they can forge ahead with a broader perspective than ever before.

In addition, the exchanges of high-level visits between China and Britain are quite frequent, offering opportunities for Chinese and British leaders to communicate in a timely manner. They held their first vice premier-level economic dialogue last year. The dialogue mechanism has been institutionalized and will continue to play a role in deepening the two countries' coordination in economic and financial policies and cementing the links between their central banks and financial regulatory agencies.

It should also be noted that the FCO's strategy document exposes the British Government's attempts to shape China's politics according to Western concepts of human rights and good governance. This will pose a major barrier to the two countries' mutual understanding and communication. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had in mind ulterior motives of geopolitical infiltration and expansion in the 1990s when he put forward a theory of new interventionism that put human rights before national sovereignty. Likewise, the FCO considers "promotion of human rights" a fundamental part of its framework in an attempt to fit China's political system into the British political framework.

The document's wording on the issue of Africa reflects that tendency. While discussing energy and resource exploitation in Africa, development assistance for Africa and the Darfur issue, it shows Britain's concern and jealousy over the rapid development of China-Africa cooperation. The concepts and rhetoric the document touts do not conform to the national conditions of African countries or the aspirations of African people. They also run counter to China's diplomatic philosophy: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.

China-Britain Business

Bilateral trade volume between China and Britain reached $38.3 billion from January to October in 2008, a year-on-year increase of 19.8 percent.

By November 2008, Britain had invested in 6,164 projects in China worth $15.6 billion in actual investment.

China's foreign direct investment in Britain amounted to $566.54 million in 2007.

The author is deputy director of the Department of EU studies at the China Institute of international studies