How to avert a comprehensive collision between the world’s two biggest economies remains a top concern for Chinese diplomacy. A recent decision by the UK and China to start a process of Free Trade Agreement negotiations has been announced.

A huge Chinese market of one billion online consumers and a 500 million-strong middle class appeal to No. 10 Downing Street as Beijing seeks to enhance a golden decade with the leading geopolitical and economic partner of the UK in areas of financial services, innovation, artificial intelligence and digital technologies in line with Beijing’s avowed 2025 vision.

China will not allow anyone to change or manipulate its own roadmap of becoming an economic and scientific superpower. This strategy of co-prosperity remains non-negotiable. But what can the UK offer in a global context and in safeguarding multilateralism?

Britain is home to the first batch of sovereign RMB bonds and the first RMB clearance center in Europe. Britain had the vision and guts to be the first of the EU to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). London and the Queen aligned the UK with the 50-member Commonwealth of Nations, which accounts for 20 percent of global trade and boasts a 2.2 billion population. From 2016 to 2050, the population of the British Commonwealth will grow by 30 percent whilst the Eurozone will drop by 1.9 percent.

It is true that following Brexit the UK will lose its status as a gateway to the EU market, but Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union will help bring Chinese goods to the EU borders through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What the UK loses might be compensated for through other regional groupings such as the 16+1 mechanism that covers all of central and eastern Europe. China’s inroads into continental Europe and its probe for more alternative markets won’t be stopped because President Trump builds more walls or trade barriers.  

A united Europe stands up to the Trump administration and says no to its unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The trans-Atlantic ties hobbled by growing mistrust over climate change and NATO spending shares will promote the idea of multi-power centers and multilateralism.

China is not alone. But this war of attrition promises to be a new Long March, a test of China’s political will and diplomatic sophistication as well as resilience for geopolitical reconfiguration. Only in this way can we hopefully avert a new Cold War and bring the hegemonic US back to the normal track of globalization and free trade.

I am Yang Rui. See you next time on Rui Thinking. Bye for now.