Although President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Britain is supposed to herald the beginning of a golden era of partnership between China and the United Kingdom, the visit has already been marred in controversy with many questioning why the government is teaming up with a country with a history of human rights abuses.
Still, readers of today’s broadsheets could be forgiven for believing that we are already in the full grip of China-mania. Today’s Financial Times has six full-page adverts from Chinese companies welcoming the Chinese president.
Meanwhile, in both today’s Times and Telegraph there is a full-page advert — half written in Chinese — offering ‘a warm welcome to President Xi Jinping of China on his state visit to the United Kingdom’.
The advert in today’s Times
The advert is placed by the Chinese drink’s company Wuliangye in partnership with the UK’s Philharmonia orchestra. Pushing the partnership of the two countries, they say that ‘no distance can keep people with same goals and ideals apart’:
‘It’s an irresistible trend that we together create in a flourishing era.
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