Illustration: VCG

Editor's Note:

"The choice facing Britain's governing class is to accept the world as it is and negotiate pragmatically or to cling to Cold War fantasies that leave us poorer and more dependent on the unreliable and violent US," said James Schneider (Schneider), former UK Labour Party adviser and communications director for the Progressive International, in an interview with Global Times (GT) reporter Zhang Ao. He made these remarks as certain domestic opposition forces criticized the UK prime minister's recent visit to China and the UK government's efforts to recalibrate its China policy toward greater engagement and cooperation. Schneider emphasized that many of the opposing voices are trapped in a Cold War fantasy, arguing that a successful new relationship with China should be used to help Britain unwind some of its dependencies - especially its economic and strategic subordination to the US - and recover greater sovereign and social control over its own development.

GT: After Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to China, certain forces in Britain voiced opposition to Starmer's approach toward China. He responded by saying that "refusing to engage would be a dereliction of duty, leaving British interests on the sideline." What is your take on these opposing voices? In your view, how does engagement with China align with Britain's national interests? 

Schneider: Many of the opposing voices are trapped in a Cold War fantasy. They frame China as a moral contest, as if Britain could isolate the world's largest manufacturing power through rhetoric alone.

This substitutes moral theater for substantive strategy. Britain imports Chinese goods every day; our supply chains, energy transition, and even basic infrastructure depend on Chinese industry. The idea that we can "refuse engagement" flatters Britain's elites into thinking they still belong to a coherent Western bloc that can dictate terms to the world.

So, the question is not whether we engage, but how. 

Engagement should mean joint ventures, industrial cooperation and rebuilding state capacity at home - using the relationship to strengthen our own sovereignty. 

In other words, a successful new relationship with China should be used to help Britain unwind some of its dependencies - especially its economic and strategic subordination to the US - and recover greater sovereign and social control over its own development.

GT: In your article "Britain's road forward runs through China," you wrote that "economic gravity is pulling the world toward China. The question is whether Britain's governing class can abandon the consolations of Cold War fantasy long enough to negotiate with reality." Could you elaborate further on that?

Schneider: China has become the center of global production. It makes the steel, batteries, turbines, electronics and infrastructure that power the modern economy. It leads in clean energy investment and deployment. It builds at a scale that no country can match.

That creates what I called "economic gravity." Countries are pulled toward China because that is where the factories, the supply chains and the technologies are.

Therefore, the choice facing Britain's governing class is to accept the world as it is and negotiate pragmatically or to cling to Cold War fantasies that leave us poorer and more dependent on the unreliable and violent US.

GT: You noted that Starmer's visit marked the meeting between a civilizational state that now shapes the world economy and a country still searching for a role after its hegemony came to an end. Why did you say so? How do the two different positions shape the tone of China-UK relations? 

Schneider: China and Britain occupy very different historical moments.

China is in a phase of ascent. In two generations it has built enormous productive capacity, lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and constructed whole industrial ecosystems from scratch. It has a clear developmental strategy and strong state capacity.

By contrast, much of Britain's industrial base has been hollowed out and our economic model is dominated by finance and rents. Our state capacity is greatly diminished.

To engage in national renewal, the British people will have to find a political vehicle able to take state power with sufficient will to work against the interests of our elites that live off speculation and asset price inflation and turn our state and productive capacities toward building the future. In that project, there are lessons to be learned from China and concrete partnerships to help us move in a direction that would fuse state coordination, public enterprise, strategic finance and market discipline for the common good.

GT: Are you optimistic that the "golden era" of China-UK relations will revive? What challenges do you foresee and how can they be overcome?

Schneider: I don't think a true golden era can come without a fundamental change in political-economic strategy on the part of the UK. That's why I insist on what type of relations we have, rather than just seeking more engagement.

A better relationship should focus on production: technology transfer, joint ventures, industrial cooperation, clean energy, infrastructure, skills. It should strengthen Britain's productive capacity.

GT: From late 2025 to the beginning of 2026, a wave of high-level visits by Western political leaders to China has drawn significant attention, occurring amid a consequential recalibration of US policy toward Europe. What broader strategic message do these "looking East" engagements convey? What underlying factors account for China's growing diplomatic and economic appeal to these countries?

Schneider: What we're seeing reflects two forces moving at the same time. US policy has become more erratic and coercive as its long period of hegemony comes to an end, and Washington has tried to force allies into an economic cordon sanitaire around China - restricting trade, technology and investment.

Meanwhile, China's industrial and technological rise. China is now too central to global supply chains, especially in energy and manufacturing, to simply be cut off. The US has discovered there are limits to how far it can decouple without hurting itself.

These visits are not ideological conversions. They are pragmatic adjustments to economic reality. There is an opportunity to use this moment of unraveling US hegemony to rebuild economic sovereignty and construct a more genuinely multilateral order - one organized around development and shared prosperity rather than great-power coercion.