There are also some in the UK who still fear China as a competitor, using low wages and price-undercutting as a competitive tool. But this is an out-of-date view. As Chinese growth proceeds apace, wages and the cost of living are rising rapidly too, and the gap is narrowing. China is no longer a low-tech, low-quality, cheap-export manufacturing base. The principal areas for planned cooperation outlined by Premier Li Keqiang after his talks with Cameron were high-speed rail and nuclear power, hardly low-end technologies. Opposition leader Ed Miliband, expressing concern about Cameron's approach, said that he hoped for a relationship "where we compete on the basis of a high-skill, high-tech, high-wage economy." There is no reason to suppose that the current UK approach is incapable of delivering that.

And it is here that Britain's China strategy dovetails into domestic policy. Again, there are domestic controversies over the direction of Britain's development, including a large vexed question over the future position of Scotland vis-à-vis the United Kingdom. The high-speed rail project is one of them. High-speed railways make clear sense in a country like China, where the distances to be covered are vast; the case is less clear in the much smaller UK. The centrepiece of the high-speed rail project is the line between the UK's two biggest cities, London and Birmingham, which are less than 200km apart. But, Mr Cameron thinks that attracting Chinese investment into the project could not only solve his financing problem, but also bind Britain firmly into this transport strategy.

Energy is also a key component of this strategic partnership. All countries are now feeling a deep need for diversity in sources of energy. China has vast resources, but is still in need of sustainable partnerships to ensure supplies and to market her own hard-won technology. Britain, with her proximity to the North Sea, is arguably best placed of all EU countries to supply the required partner. But it will not be straightforward. The energy field is powerfully affected by uncertainties over Scotland; the EU's renewable energy strategy complicates the issue still further, and is also domestically controversial; and nuclear power still generates deep-lying fears, especially after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. One of the UK's major EU partners, Germany, has renounced nuclear power altogether. Cameron's idea is that China's involvement will be a stabilising factor in holding all these disparate elements together. Once the money is committed, he hopes, the controversies will die down, especially if tangible economic benefits result.

And it was not only the usual array of large companies which were represented in Mr Cameron's delegation: Small entrepreneurs were there as well, including a West Country sausage-maker, and even -- in the land of the bicycle -- a bicycle manufacturer. This is welcome. It is at this level -- the grass roots economy -- that a real relationship is built up, not just by flashing billions around in boardrooms. It should become as natural to go to China to market one's product (or, for Chinese, to the UK) as it now is to go to a neighbouring country or even city. I only hope the British will overcome their long-standing horror of learning foreign languages!

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.h5a3.com/opinion/timcollard.htm

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