It was all sealed over a pint of Greene King IPA.One Thursday evening in October 2015, David Cameron strode into a Buckinghamshire pub with another of the world’s most powerful men to toast the beginning of a golden era of relations between the UK and China.
Addressing Britain’s parliament the previous day, President Xi Jinping of China had gushed over the “great new age” of friendship between London and Beijing. “As the Chinese saying goes: a mountain can never be too high or an ocean too deep,” Xi declared. Yet scarcely nine months after their hop-scented embrace in the Plough at Cadsden, the love affair between Cameron and Xi appears to be on the rocks following Britain’s decision to leave the EU and the prime minister’s resignation. Read more
