If Britain can cozy up to China, why can’t Sri Lanka?
2015-10-26
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ast week saw a curious event of pomp and funfair-and political realism-that highlighted how far the States would go to maximize their benefits, even at the expense of their allies. Britain rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping, the Chinese President who rode in a gilded royal carriage to the Buckingham Palace with the Queen seated alongside, and was hosted in a series of banquets and signed trade deals running into billions of
dollars, including a 30% investment in a new British nuclear power plant. Since the United States, Britain’s old ‘special friend’ is hedging against the rising (and increasingly assertive) China, the British cozying up with the Middle Kingdom would not go down well in Washington. That is in addition to all the righteous concerns of human rights that were put on hold in the rush for China’s gold.
2015-10-26
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ast week saw a curious event of pomp and funfair-and political realism-that highlighted how far the States would go to maximize their benefits, even at the expense of their allies. Britain rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping, the Chinese President who rode in a gilded royal carriage to the Buckingham Palace with the Queen seated alongside, and was hosted in a series of banquets and signed trade deals running into billions of dollars, including a 30% investment in a new British nuclear power plant. Since the United States, Britain’s old ‘special friend’ is hedging against the rising (and increasingly assertive) China, the British cozying up with the Middle Kingdom would not go down well in Washington. That is in addition to all the righteous concerns of human rights that were put on hold in the rush for China’s gold.
