During British Prime Minister David Cameron's recent visit to China, the China's government rightly concentrated on establishing a framework to positively push forward future China-U.K. relations. But the reality is that rarely have the out of date pretensions of a British prime minister been so harshly and humiliatingly brought down as with David Cameron's policy on China. China's leaders are too tactful and diplomatic to state it bluntly during Cameron's current Beijing visit, but the rest of the world, including numerous British commentators, knows exactly what has occurred.

Last year Cameron met the Dalai Lama, which in China's terms has about the same level of subtlety as Xi Jinping meeting Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond to "wish him well" in his campaign for Scottish independence or de Gaulle's notorious 1967 "Vive le Québec libre" speech de facto supporting Quebec's separation from Canada. It was predictably met with the "big freeze" – British ministers being refused meetings with their senior Chinese counterparts.

Cameron seems to have believed that China's leaders would blink first in the ensuing standoff – as though the world's second largest economy, with 7.8 percent growth, needed help from a U.K. whose GDP has not even regained its level of five years ago. It didn't happen and, as British commentator Simon Jenkins put it, "Cameron could hardly have grovelled lower. Downing Street sources say Britain has now 'turned a page' and is 'looking to the future; ' it will show 'mutual respect and understanding. '" The lesson that China is now a great power and Britain is not was forcibly driven home.

This humiliation for Cameron regrettably inevitably reflects on the country he leads. But the policy of seeking the best mutually beneficial ties between Britain and China should be resumed.

These relations are in reality, not just as a trite phrase, a potential "win-win situation." Britain needs China's investment in its infrastructure, China as a market for its exports, and to gain its profitable share of the 100 million Chinese tourists who will soon be traveling abroad. China needs Britain's hi-tech knowledge in areas such as life sciences, and London, the world's biggest foreign exchange trading center, as a base for its currency's internationalisation.

All Cameron did was to make these relations more difficult. Not even the British government believes its official rhetoric that its earlier policies had no effect on economic ties. If that were true, Cameron would not feel the need to eat political humble pie and lead the biggest ever group of business leaders to China.

Some general lessons can be drawn from this episode. Seen from China, Britain's attempts to claim some moral high ground in its dealings with the country have no credibility. What is Britain's record? Its first major encounter with China was to send troops to force the country to import British opium. Then it seized the island of Hong Kong – perhaps the Chinese government will ask for the Isle of Wight in compensation. Then its troops destroyed the Old Summer Palace in Beijing – perhaps the People's Liberation Army should loot and burn Buckingham Palace. Britain lectures China on democracy in Hong Kong when, in the whole time the U.K. ruled the island, it never allowed democratic government until it realised it would be forced to return its colony to China. Or, to come up to the present, Britain was the chief U.S. ally in an invasion of Iraq, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths while China raised more than 600 million people – more than the EU's entire population – out of poverty.

The reality is that David Cameron's political career has about 18 months to run in light of the present unpopularity of the present Conservative led government. If he loses the 2015 general election, then the prime minister who replaces him, Ed Miliband, may want to ponder the more general lessons of Cameron's Chinese fiasco for British foreign policy as he plans his Beijing visit.

There are many things people all over the world want from Britain in which we can take pride – investment, Shakespeare, science, humor, pop music and trade, to name but a few. But it would be good to apologise for, and stay out of, things the world did not want to receive from this country – visits from gunships, opium, seizure of islands and interference in their internal affairs.

If that more general lesson can be absorbed, Cameron's humiliation in Beijing will have served a useful purpose after all.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/johnross.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn

(This is a modified version of an article which originally appeared on the Guardian's Comment is Free.)

Related

• The British prime minister's Beijing visit
• Cameron goes to China
• Cameron posts selfie with Jack Ma

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)