Britain would do well to remember where its power over China lies | Simon Jenkins

"The US has backed down in its tariff war with China. Thanks to Donald Trump's egotistical diplomacy, rare earths can again flow one way, soya beans the other, and less of the chemicals used to make fentanyl in between. No matter that the war was Trump's own idea and seems to have been a stunt. The stunt is over. Trump has played his favourite game of dealmaker, much to the discomfort of millions."

"They have large military empires heavily reliant on them, empires fiendishly resistant to dismantling. After the fall of the Soviet Union a senior advisor to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev joked to American officials: We are going to do a terrible thing to you we are going to deprive you of an enemy. Who is the US's new enemy? The answer is clearly China. But as Trump has found, it is an enemy with which it is hard to come to terms."

US-backed-down in its tariff war with China, allowing rare earths, soya beans, and fewer precursor chemicals for fentanyl to resume cross-border flows. The tariff conflict began as a Trump-initiated stunt, and Trump returned to dealmaking that restored trade but unsettled millions. Britain remains ambivalent about whether China constitutes a national-security threat. UK officials once raised human-rights concerns at the Beijing Olympics and later pursued closer ties under David Cameron and George Osborne. China now projects greater global power, pursues intelligence recruitment, expands diplomatic presence, and exerts influence that complicates Western strategic responses. China challenges the US economically without projecting large expeditionary armies.

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