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[text/observer network zhang jingjuan] according to hong kong's "south china morning post" report on the 26th, peter mandelson, a senior british labor party politician and a "close adviser" to british prime minister starmer, said that the uk has committed the largest crime in the past decade. the mistake was the sudden change in attitude towards china. "this is irrational and unrealistic."

according to reports, britain's relations with china have declined under successive conservative governments for more than a decade as britain increasingly views china as a security challenge.

talking about sino-british relations during cameron’s tenure, mandelson said, “this was neither a golden era nor lasting.” johnson claims to be "pro-china" but "plays the human rights card." truss frequently "played the anti-china card," while her successor sunak classified china as an "authoritarian country."

"(britain's) biggest mistake is that it (its attitude towards china) takes a sharp turn and turns from one extreme to another. first it was a crazy show of goodwill, and then it turned to disgust. this is irrational and unrealistic." mandelson said .

the uk has yet to formulate a formal strategy towards china since the starmer government came to power. starmer previously stated that the labor government will conduct a comprehensive review of britain's relations with china to understand the scale of the challenge from china and take appropriate actions based on the results of the review.

in mandelson's view, sino-british relations are facing challenges. the uk is very competitive with china and sometimes even challenges china, and the uk needs to establish a link with china "that enables us to work with china where appropriate and necessary."

"it is this clarity and continuity that we are pursuing in our engagement with china after the comprehensive review is completed," mandelson said.

in august this year, the leaders of china and the uk had a phone call. starmer expressed the need to develop long-term, stable and strategically significant uk-china relations in the spirit of mutual respect.

mandelson believes that today's trade is increasingly affected by geopolitics, but the uk cannot "boycott the world's largest and fastest-growing economy" because of this.

china is the uk's largest trading partner in asia, and the sino-uk trade volume has exceeded us$100 billion every year in recent years. the uk is china's third largest trading partner, second largest investment destination and third largest source of foreign investment in europe. data show that in the first half of 2024, china-uk bilateral trade volume was us$46.77 billion, of which my country's exports to the uk were us$37.24 billion and imports from the uk were us$9.53 billion.

mandelson is a veteran of the labor party and has served as uk trade secretary and eu trade commissioner. in an interview with bloomberg last week, he criticized the previous british conservative government for failing to maintain appropriate communication channels with china. he believes that this is exactly what the new british government needs to change.

in a speech at the university of hong kong on september 16, mandelson said that although the new british government faced "significant challenges" in restoring britain's global influence, he was satisfied with the improvement of bilateral relations with china under the leadership of starmer. optimistic because "the new government has decided that it wants to engage with china."

he called on britain and china to first "stop slandering each other" and enhance dialogue and exchanges, especially exchanges between the two governments and peoples.

shortly after mandelson made relevant remarks, the chinese leader of the china-uk economic and financial dialogue, vice premier he lifeng, was invited to have a phone call with the british leader of the dialogue, british chancellor of the exchequer reeves, on september 18 to discuss the restart of the china-uk economic and financial dialogue. economic and financial dialogue and exchange of views on strengthening economic and trade cooperation.

he lifeng said that china is willing to work with the uk to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, restart the china-uk economic and financial dialogue, strengthen the docking of development strategies, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and expand finance, green economy, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence. cooperation in intelligence and other fields. reeves said that the uk is willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with china to establish a stable and lasting foundation for the development of long-term and mutually beneficial relations between the uk and china.

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