China syndrome

The Chinese government is unlikely to give Theresa May a panda in the near future. This week the country’s ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, left no one in any doubt that President Xi Jinping takes a dim view of Mrs May’s decision to review the deal for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset — a deal through which China General Nuclear, the state nuclear-energy company, would have a one-third share. The Prime Minister was told that Anglo-Chinese relations are at a-‘critical historical juncture’. So she’d better play-nicely and approve that power station — or risk the wrath of Beijing.

This is a far cry from the prevailing atmosphere last October, when Xi Jinping shared a pint of Greene King with David Cameron and, with human rights protestors kept at bay, was treated to a banquet at Buckingham Palace. China, in the eyes of Cameron and Osborne, was the answer to many of Britain’s infrastructure shortcomings.