An ideal opportunity to enhance Sino-UK relations

By Chris Peterson | China Daily | Updated: 2016-08-19 07:56

When China hosts the G20 Summit next month the event will provide an ideal opportunity for the United Kingdom's new Prime Minister, Theresa May, to meet senior officials after a change of direction on a key project, and get the "golden era" back on track.

In effect, the moves have already started. Newly appointed UK Minister for Asia and the Pacific, Alok Sharma, recently made his first visit to China and handed a letter for President Xi Jinping from Prime Minister May to China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

In the letter, May said the UK supports China's successful hosting of the summit and expects to enhance bilateral cooperation on trade, the economy and global issues.

The UK's political landscape has altered radically since October, when President Xi rode through central London in a state carriage on his way to Buckingham Palace as a guest of Queen Elizabeth II.

Instability and uncertainty flourished as Britons voted in favor of leaving the European Union, causing the abrupt resignation of then-Prime Minister David Cameron, whose administration had pursued a policy of a stronger, closer relationship with Beijing, becoming a founder member of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and strongly supporting China's position that it should automatically gain market economy status in December.

None of that has changed, but the shine has been taken off with the arrival of May as prime minister, and by a complete change of government personnel, although it is still a Conservative government.

Abruptly this summer, Greg Clarke, newly appointed as secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, announced a review of a controversial 18 billion pound ($23 billion) project to build a French-designed nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest England. China is investing one-third of the total cost, with the understanding the UK's next nuclear project will be Chinese-designed and built.

The review announcement came barely 48 hours before French, Chinese and UK officials were due to hold a signing ceremony at the site.

The whys and wherefores of the Hinkley Point project are well-known, including warnings of consequences if the deal doesn't go ahead.

What is vital now is that UK ministers and government officials take the opportunity of the G20 summit to explain to their Chinese counterparts exactly how the debacle was allowed to happen.

The UK says May's new administration needs time to study what is a highly controversial plan, and that anyway it was only following the original timetable set out by the French.

It's true that in the modern world in which we live, much of what goes on in public is the result of countless hours of negotiation by officials in back rooms.

That doesn't seem to have happened in this case, as the Hinkley Point review decision was as much of a surprise to many government officials as it was to China. It has created a pointless crisis at a time when the UK doesn't need another crisis, dealing as it is with the unknowns of "Brexit" and upheavals in the domestic political system.

What the G20 offers is a golden opportunity to get the golden era back on track.

That's what should be happening in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The healing process has already started with Sharma's visit.

Chris Peterson is Managing Director for China Daily in Europe. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com