THE international situation now is very different from that of 50 years ago, when — with the Vietnam war looming — Joseph Needham and others saw the urgent necessity of promoting understanding of China in Britain.

Long gone are the days when China was a beleaguered country in need of international support. Now it is reshaping the world and transforming itself in the process with breathtaking speed. Ten years ago, the Chinese economy was approximately the same size as Britain’s. Today it is four times larger. A future in which it is two or even three times larger than that of the US is not unimaginable.

Yet the challenge of understanding China remains. True, the momentum of Sino-British relations is picking up, with more schools, businesses, universities and NGOs not only building direct links with counterparts in China but also operating there. And the exchange is becoming two-way: Britain hosts the largest number of Confucius Institutes of any country in Europe.

Nevertheless, the level of public debate about China’s rise and its meaning for Britain’s future is woefully inadequate. Rarely if ever does this rise above vacuous punditry: “Whither China? Is it going to implode? Is its economy going to land soft or hard? Will it ever improve its human rights record?”

At last year’s Labour Party conference, following leaders’ pronouncements on Britain’s global role, the Chinese for Labour group was hard-pushed to draw more than 20 to 30 people to its fringe meeting What can we learn from China? Yet at the very least China’s extraordinary progress in poverty reduction, making up over 70 per cent of the global total, should be taken as an example for the wider world in evaluating the 1990-2015 Millennium Development Goals.

We remain as blighted by the problem of, in Needham’s words, “‘blind ignorance” as we were 50 years ago. In all of the World War I centenary coverage last year there was barely a mention of China. We memorialise war horses but not the thousands of Chinese labourers who lost their lives in the service of the British army in France. In fact, the Versailles sell-out was a defining moment for China when part of its territory was handed over to Japan. If we cannot understand this, we cannot understand the world today.

This year, the 70th anniversary of the WWII victory, will China be remembered as our ally against world fascism? Will we recall the battle of Yenangyuang in April 1942 in Burma, when Chinese troops rescued 7,000 British soldiers, encircled by the Japanese army, from annihilation? Or the thousands of Chinese merchant seamen based in Liverpool working the dangerous transatlantic run?

Media misconceptions continue to drive a wedge between our own deeply rooted liberal humanitarian aspirations and China’s centralised developmental state, inuring the public’s mind against common ground. Parliament’s colonial instincts stir to debate democracy in Hong Kong. Sinophobia periodically resurfaces, as when, in 2001, Chinese restaurants in Britain were blamed for foot and mouth disease or when the hullabaloo was raised over the Chinese police “thugs” who accompanied the Olympic torch through the streets of London in 2008.

More recently, an insidious maligning has been evident in some Western media reports of last year’s terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, which put “terrorist” in quotation marks, adding: “As claimed by the Chinese government.” Yet China’s condemnation of the Charlie Hedbo killings was unconditional (though not without qualifying mention of the negative impact of especially US policies and practices).

The left in general, with some exceptions, is as guilty as any in failing to grasp why it is important, even urgent, to understand China. Right and left echo each other in misperceptions of China’s “neocolonial” role in Africa. From both sides comes acclaim for the Hong Kong student demonstrations, no doubt for their “colour revolution” potential to spread into China and liberate the “oppressed masses.”

Speaking at a conference on international friendship in Beijing last year, President Xi Jinping addressed the question of the China threat theory, the result, he said, of misperceptions but also, in some cases, of a strong bias against China.

Reiterating the view that “friendship among peoples is the foundation for world peace,” he quoted a Chinese saying: “Affinity between the people holds the key to state-to-state relations while mutual understanding holds the key to people-to-people relations.”

Fifty years ago, Needham set out the challenge of understanding “the meaning of China, past and present.” This is no doubt different to people from Venezuela to India, to Spain and so on. But together we face a future that is increasingly shared, one that demands co-operation to tackle threats of climate change, impoverishment, financial instability, pandemics, terrorism and so on.

Yet here in Britain our political elites remain anchored into the containment mentality of Nato and the transatlantic alliance. Meanwhile Europe and China are moving closer together — literally — as direct rail links between China and Germany across Eurasia cut journey times by one third.

Following China’s twists and turns over the decades has proved arduous as the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (Sacu) has sought to adapt and change with the times. Over the last 25 years, the society has kept the thread of cross-cultural understanding alive. Relations with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which were broken off after 1989, have returned to a firmer footing.

Sacu’s mission to help overcome misplaced suspicion and misunderstanding of China in Britain remains as valid as ever — only now as much for the sake of Britain’s future. Its informal mode of internationalism, friendly if not uncritical, surely has a valuable role to play as Sino-British relations deepen.

Sacu’s focus shifted to and fro between grassroots and influential figures in looking for support as a changing situation demanded. But its bearings are to be found in the traditions of support for the Chinese people in Britain, dating back to the Chartist opposition to the opium war. As China sets out now to tell its own story to the world, Sacu should make known the story of the people’s history of British-Chinese relations, not least including the Hands Off China movement of 1925-27 and the China Campaign Committee which organised support for China’s anti-Japanese resistance in the ’30s and ’40s.

Sacu’s 50th anniversary provides an opportunity to further public discussion. Together with the help of historians, we will discuss what it means to understand China, reflecting on our past and looking to the future.

• The event Challenging Britain’s Perceptions of China: 50 Years of Sacu will take place on May 30 at King’s College London’s Strand Campus, from 10.30am-5pm. See www.sacu.org.