Selling Britain is one thing, selling out is another. We don’t know what was said face to face, but we can be pretty sure it was nothing that would offend the prickly hosts. I have been on a few of these junkets and they follow a path as well trodden as the Great Wall.
There’s a telling photograph of the chancellor, issued by the official Chinese news agency, which shows her sitting attentively, briefcase tucked on her chair, while the Chinese vice-president Han Zheng holds forth in front of a classical landscape mural. Neither is touching their porcelain teacups.
Such images are meant to convey to the Chinese public that the foreigners have come to pay tribute and beg favour from a mighty power – as did the first British envoy, Lord George Macartney, in 1793.
He was sent on his way by the Qianlong emperor with an edict that still resounds with doomed magnificence: China “never valued ingenious articles” and did not have “the slightest need of your manufactures”.
Accordingly, the emperor advised King George III “to act in conformity with our wishes by strengthening your loyalty and swearing perpetual obedience so as to ensure your country may share the blessings of peace”.
The monarch’s reaction is not recorded, but Anglo-Chinese diplomacy has moved on and trade is now worth more than £87bn a year, British statistics show.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 15, 2025 من The Independent.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 15, 2025 من The Independent.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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