We should never have tried cosying up to Chinese investors

I can’t read ‘China rocked by protests’ and ‘Zero Covid could be the end of Xi Jinping’s rule’ without recalling 4 May 1989, when I watched chanting students march into Tiananmen Square and overheard the British ambassador Sir Alan Donald declare: ‘There, you see how liberal China is becoming.’ I was a banker back then and had just visited the People’s Bank of China to discuss its appetite for investing in UK government debt – having flown up from Hong Kong, where business was booming under the reassurance that the British-run outpost’s way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years after the forthcoming handover to Beijing.

The consensus among sinologists, bankers and most journalists of the era was that China’s leadership was gradually moving towards businesslike accommodations with the West and with its own internal advocates for reform. A month later, tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square. Latterly, Hong Kong’s freedoms have been crushed by a brutal ‘national security’ law while western governments strive to exclude Chinese investors but most developing nations offer them a hero’s welcome.