WILL Labour take a more rational approach to China than the Tories did? Or continue the drive to trade decoupling and war led by the United States?

Optimism was in the air at a China Media Group meeting bringing together the country’s ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguang and business figures earlier this week. The Donald Trump government was not named, but its disruptive character was referenced — Zheng observed that “unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise and power politics runs rampant;” the chairman of the China-British Council, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, spoke of the “orange-coloured elephant in the room.”

China in Springtime reported back on the recent Two Sessions, as the simultaneous meetings of China’s national policy-making forums — the legislative National People’s Congress, and the advisory People’s Political Consultative Conference — are known.

Zheng countered propaganda depicting China’s rise as a threat to a “rules-based” — read US-policed — world order. “China champions an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation.” 

Here he referenced President Xi Jinping’s three signature initiatives, the Global Development Initiative (for economic co-operation in place of trade systems that benefit corporations in rich countries at the expense of the global South), the Global Security Initiative (replacing concepts of security based on power blocs like Nato with an inclusive international security architecture) and the Global Civilisation Initiative, which promotes multipolarity and argues for a world order based on respect for different civilisations, rather than one whose institutions have all been designed in the framework of the European political tradition.

China would meet its 5 per cent growth target and its role as a scientific innovator should be recognised, he argued, pointing to its leading role in the global green transition (non-fossil fuels accounting for 40 per cent of Chinese electricity generation last year and 70 per cent of all electric vehicles worldwide being sold in China) as well as its progress in quantum technology and AI, most notably with DeepSeek, the “low-cost, open source large language model [which] has stunned the world.”

“On sci-tech, we were playing catch-up but have now become a frontrunner.” But unlike the US, which seeks to stymie China’s development by blocking access to chips and software, “we don’t believe in ‘small yard, high fence’ — we believe in mutual learning and sharing.”

And he dismissed attacks on China’s model: “The third key message the Two Sessions convey to the world is: China’s political system works.

“The Two Sessions practise whole-process people’s democracy under the leadership of the Communist Party. This system ensures public participation throughout the entire process of governance,” he said, pointing to the thousands of proposals and millions of online citizens’ opinions that flooded into the Two Sessions via the more than 5,000 deputies to the two meetings. 

The language is familiar to China-watchers, but the assembled British businessmen all agreed with Zheng’s assessment. Sir Sherard contrasted China’s “serious government” to too many in the West, pointing out China has a record of achieving its economic growth targets and should be seen as a key export market for British goods and services. 

Every speaker welcomed the overtures to China by Chancellor Rachel Reeves as she seeks inward investment unlikely to come from a recession-riddled EU or a protectionist United States. Likewise Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s visit to Beijing which allows Britain to learn from the world leader in renewable tech.

Former Treasury spokesman Lord Neil Davidson said London should view China’s advances as opportunities, not threats.

The City should pay close attention to the “BricsPay project — another platform for trade finance as an addition to the dollar-based system… this could be characterised as a threat to dollar hegemony, but historically the City has looked to assess financial innovations for their objective effects rather than rhetoric,” he argued, hinting that Britain too could benefit from an end to US financial supremacy.

Davidson pointed to the repeated past claims China’s economy would hit the rocks, all disproved by its steady growth.

“The view that China can be pressured into policies it rejects, if ever true, is plainly bankrupt. The view that China is dependent on the West for technology is eroding speedily. The view that China is merely a low-cost provider of goods belongs in the past.”

This was not a political meeting, let alone a socialist one: but it illustrated something worth noting for everyone keen to resist the drive to war and our political class’s slavish attitude to Washington.

There is a strong case for co-operation with China, which could really benefit our economy: and ending US dominance would not be a bad thing for Britain, but open up possibilities of a more independent place for our country in the world.