這篇雖然不是2018年8月之後寫的，但是在經濟學者雜誌討論區在2018年2月作調整後，這篇寫到一半的筆者硬著頭皮寫完並且貼在臉書回文上。中國在當時依序在2018年陽曆新年前後接待法英兩國，但是習近平似乎和筆者一樣比較傾心於和英國的外交，而很巧妙地也在李克強總理月前訪問德國簽訂中德自由貿易協定FTA，除了緩衝中美貿易大戰的負面影響，似乎讓中國在Brexit事件中是受傷最輕的第三者國家。以下是原文和筆者的回文。

Macartney’s heir

Theresa May’s awkward Chinese visit shows Britain’s weakened clout

Attempts to woo Chinese investment are reined in by the need to keep America and Europe onside

Print edition | Britain Jan 31st 2018 | BEIJING

IN 1793 the leader of Britain’s first mission to China, George Macartney, refused to kowtow to the emperor. His attempt to maintain Britain’s dignity, however, was rather undermined by the message written on the sails of the imperial junks that transported his diplomats and trade goods to Beijing. This read: “Ambassador bearing tribute from the country of England”.

Dealing with the Chinese government is rarely easy, as Theresa May found during her three-day visit to the country this week. The prime minister had a difficult balance to strike. For one thing, she wanted to reassert that Britain and China are still enjoying the “golden era” proclaimed in 2015 by Xi Jinping, China’s president, and her predecessor, David Cameron, who since leaving office has been trying to set up a China-Britain investment fund.

She also wanted Britain to become more closely involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, a $4trn network of infrastructure projects that is Mr Xi’s signature foreign policy and the focus of Mr Cameron’s fund. To that end, she has already—as she sees it—done more than other rich countries to cosy up to the scheme. Her chancellor, Philip Hammond, has appointed a “City envoy” to it (Douglas Flint, a former chairman of HSBC) and set up a “City board” to try to bring the financing of belt-and-road projects up to rich-world standards of transparency (good luck with that). Above all she needed to show, by improving ties with China, that her talk of a global Britain open for business after Brexit is not just waffle.

Like Macartney, Mrs May would prefer to get all this without kowtowing. She also knows that European countries are wary of the opaque financing of belt-and-road projects, and suspicious of China’s use of the scheme to expand its influence in central and eastern Europe. America’s administration has dubbed China a “strategic competitor”. This means Mrs May cannot bend over backwards to buy her host’s acquiescence without offending Europeans and Americans.

If she had hoped the Chinese government would let her off the hook by not demanding too much in exchange for her wish-list, she was soon disappointed. The Chinese asked her formally to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative by including flattering words about it in various memoranda of understanding. They also wanted Britain to support Mr Xi’s attempt to present himself as a leader of globalisation by embracing his buzz-phrase about a “shared future for mankind”.

All this went too far. Mrs May gamely spoke of the “British dream”, echoing Mr Xi’s slogan of a “Chinese dream”, and tactfully avoided the subject of human rights, at least in her public remarks. But she turned away from happy talk about a “golden era” and gave warning that China needed to respect international trading rules more. Perhaps Mr Xi supposed Mrs May was so weak domestically that she would have to give in to Chinese pressure. But perhaps she was so weak that she could not.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Macartney’s heir"

以下是回文

Just less than 1 month after French (F) President (PR) Emmanuel Macron visited China (C), the PR Xi Jin-ping warmly welcomed British (B) Prime Minister Theresa May (TM), called “Auntie May” in Mandarin, and the reciprocal companion investment. What C people treats TM abides by much more amicable etiquette compared to Macartney’s visit and the B opposition faction. It takes merely 1 year for UK to accomplish the Brexit. For B seeks to own the better global diplomatic (DI) and economic (E’s) vision, the Sino-B tie is indeed a good aspect of breakeven meeting an unprecedented chance of larger multifarious progress.

Compared to the F and German (G), B traditionally and politically gets closer to C. B in 1950 built up the formal DI tie with Beijing and in 2015 co-founded the C-proposal AIIB without the US’s opponents near the time B ex-PM David Cameron emphasized the start of “golden era” of Sino-B relations. 

TM left C last Fri with deals worth more than £9.3bn at the end of a 3-day trade mission, but the duration has few involvements of assignment of Belt and Road’s (B&R) vicinity. The quagmire of the practice aroused some uncanny interrogative of the tie’s metamorphosis. On one side, TM seeks for the new critical standing while US PR Donald Trump monopolizes the solution to the Middle East and the Iran nuke affairs although the US-UK ally keeps. And C hopes to borrow the ideas of London’s St. Lombard financial establishments that fits with the ideal of 2-way trade after Brexit.

For B businesses (BUS) operating in B&R initiative, the UK government (GOV) just last Dec announced up to £25bn in financial support, including loan guarantees. There is a sufficient prerequisite of Sino-B FTA signature, although it’s estimated it takes more than 5 years to make the negotiation done. B, the worlds 6th largest (LA) E, sends only 3% of its exports (EX) of goods and services to C while just 7% of its imports (IM) are from C. C investment, TM said in Shanghai, helps B develop infrastructure (INF) and create jobs, with some 50,000 B BUS importing goods from C and more than 10,000 sell their goods to C, including “renowned food and drink”. To take the TM’s suggestion, like the C’s intake of “Fish & Chips”, could ease the B domestic concerning industrial plights. Instead of the shadow of C’s interior weaker demand and the wage rising, the C’s innovative or edge-risky business looking for the new wave of investment or niche could consider B. Moreover, without EU ban on military sanction in the future, C could win an unduly global strategic susceptibility from the new Sino-B cooperative framework.

On the other side, the E’s superficial solidity isn’t enough to eliminate the murky stagnation arising from political (PO) institutional cognition. It results in the slower path to the consummate flourishment. After TM succeeded as Tory leader in 2016, she once paused C’s involvement in the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor development, amid concern over C GOV’s opacity that could affect the security-sensitive INF. In fact, the impediments during B&R’s contract in many nations annoy C GOV like in Hungary, and some Southeast Asia states especially in the face of the competition with India. The derivatives locate mainly at the excess of C’s steel EXs to B and the protection of intelligence, the conclusions of which are both hardly agreeable to both sides. The traditional binding of US-UK ally with the conservative PO attitude oriented to rationalism is somehow controversy of C’s rising thinking of the E-center diversified community.

Yet the Sino-B tie, rather than US-C aspect that objects the human rights (HR) and the trade’s imbalance, goes practical way in dignity in regard to the sovereignty. C PM Li Ke-qiang confirmed that he and TM had discussed HR, while she emphasized the issue rising of surplus in the steel market. She needed to care the job losses in UK and Europe since EX from C surged. Another influenced the C foreign tie attributing to the disturb of asymmetry information and the recognition of the global E environments. Compared to the prospect of other tie with C, the Sino-B tie gets largely meretricious even if the both authority are not prompt in dealing with the B&R’s development this time.

The UK ran a trade deficit of £25.4bn with C in 2016: IM from C were £42.3bn, whereas UK EX to C worth £16.8bn. UK EX to C have increased by 64% since 2010, the most eminent besides that of US and G. In 2016, the UK was Cs 20th LA source of IM, and its 10th LA market for EX. As the C’s E strategic arrangement in accord to the world E’s recuperation, the dilemma of heavier investing cost after Brexit isn’t big enough to eminently deter the C business’s visionary exploration. Well, the golden era of B Empire is far from the present US enormous strength, but the concept of new global E CO shines through at the crossroads of 2 old political reality’s glory age.