https://arab.news/2jhke
This is the age of strategic reckoning on all fronts and for all nations. It is surely the Donald Trump effect, but it is also the result of the grinding breakdown of the old world order and the rise of new powers and new technologies and what comes with them in terms of emerging threats, emerging opportunities and adversities.
It is from this prism that the UK is trying to hedge its bets on many fronts: from the changing but still special relationship with an unreliable US to the renewed overture to its European neighbors in an attempt to stop Russia’s encroachment in Ukraine and America’s in Greenland. Last but not least, there is also a tilt east to try to repair London’s vital relationship with China, which is clearly ready to court “middle powers” — but only on its terms.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer could not have chosen a better time to head to China, becoming the first British leader to visit the country in eight years. He is seeking to rebuild ties and harmonize the bumpy relationship with Beijing at a time of plummeting relations with the US.
But mending ties with the world’s second-largest economy is no easy task. And it will be made much more difficult by the current imperial-like US administration, which is bent on goading and issuing orders to its allies and friends ahead of its enemies.
