China in the UK’s Foreign Policy

In the post-Brexit environment, at a time when the United Kingdom is looking to redefine its international positioning under the ‘Global Britain’ policy, one of the most urgent priorities for London proves to be to restructure its relations with key global players like China. The objective of this study is to examine factors influencing the development of London’s policy towards Beijing in the period 2015–2022 and to verify whether the growing salience of a progressive liberal posture in the UK’s foreign policy vis-à-vis China could account for the deterioration of bilateral relations that has been experienced. The research attempts to investigate whether the UK’s initial modus vivendi liberal economic engagement with China gave way to a renewed emphasis on progressive liberal internationalist convictions manifested by the UK’s firm stance on Chinese investments in British critical infrastructure and by an amplified criticism of China’s repressive domestic record and aggressive global posture.