A crowd in London wave Chinese and British national flags in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United Kingdom.

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United Kingdom from Oct. 19 to 23. 2015 is the first year of the second decade of the China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership. Some scholars said that China is the UK’s second biggest trading partner outside the EU while the UK is China’s second biggest trading partner among the EU member states. It is the right time for both sides to further deepen bilateral ties and conduct mutually beneficial cooperation. China-UK relations are entering into a “golden era,” they said.

Golden era
Recently, the Annual Report on Development of the United Kingdom (2014-2015), jointly compiled and released by the Center for British Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University and the British Research Branch of the Chinese Association for European Studies, put forward the idea that China-UK cooperation in fields of investment and finance has become one of the most remarkable achievements. The UK, as one of China’s most important economic partner in the EU, is extremely popular with Chinese investors. By the end of 2014, China’s direct investment stock in the UK totaled more than $40 billion. The UK has become China’s largest target country for investment.
 

China-UK economic and trade ties serve as the “ballast” for bilateral relations and are boosting the development of bilateral relations at the strategic level, said Wang Mingjin, associate dean of the School of International Studies and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
 

Tian Dewen, a research fellow from the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed external factors in the development of China-UK relations. First of all, the British economy has not completely recovered from the effects of the financial crisis. Cooperation with China is beneficial to British economic growth. Furthermore, finance is the pillar industry of the UK. With the pound’s international status declining, cooperation with China, one of the most important trading countries in the world, is conducive to the growth of the British financial industry.

China, as a large developing country, has an enormous domestic market and is playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, which has provided big opportunities for cooperation between China and the UK in economy, trade and finance, said Zhao Huaipu, a professor from China Foreign Affairs University.

Complementary advantages
 “In the past, China valued the UK’s capital and technology while the UK saw importance in China’s potential market as well as its cheap and fine goods. Such an era is not over yet and new complementarity is coming into being,” said Feng Zhongping, deputy director of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, adding that the UK and Europe need China’s investment while China is attaching increasing importance to British services. 
 

Chen Yugang, a professor from the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, said all-dimensional complementarity in the China-UK economy is reflected in many aspects. First, the UK is advanced in terms of its service industry while China is intensifying its manufacturing and industrial upgrading. Second, the UK has a developed financial industry while China is pushing forward financial development and international financial cooperation. Third, the UK is facing the arduous task of upgrading infrastructure. China has advantages in terms of infrastructure construction projects and funds. Fourth, China’s manufacturing can also be combined with the UK’s project services through third-party economic cooperation.
 

International order
 Feng said the UK is undergoing the most important diplomatic transformation since World War II, which is embodied in diversified diplomacy, adjustments in major-country relations, stressing soft power and further boosting pragmatic diplomacy.

Zhao said that successful cooperation in the fields of economy and finance will have an impact on international monetary and financial systems.
 

 “China-UK ties conform to both sides’ strategic demands and can also push forward the transformation of the international order and construction of a global governance system,” Chen said. He said China-UK ties can promote the UK’s status in Europe and the world. The UK is China’s cooperative partner with special significance in Western countries as well as a global cooperative partner. It can play an active role in the next  phase of China’s globalization development and deepening the China-EU partnership for peace, growth, reform and civilization. 

 

 

 

Zhang Junrong is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.