00:00Well, for more on this, I spoke to Kerry Brown, who's Professor of Chinese Studies
00:04and Director of the Lao China Institute at King's College, London.
00:08In Beijing recently, there's been, obviously, President Trump of America,
00:12there's been President Putin of Russia, there's been the Foreign Minister of Iran.
00:20I mean, Beijing is becoming one of the sort of diplomatic capitals of the world now.
00:26There's just been the Shangri-La conference in Singapore talking about Asia-Pacific security.
00:32And so it's very timely that the Foreign Secretary from Britain is going.
00:37It will be natural to restart a major high-level dialogue.
00:41The Prime Minister of Britain went in January, so there's obviously momentum.
00:45And I think mostly in Britain, I think politically, people do support discussion and dialogue with China,
00:52even though we know there's challenges.
00:54We regard it as being critical because in terms of the environmental issues, AI governance,
01:03you know, many of the economic issues, Britain and China actually are more in agreement than in disagreement.
01:10And what other kind of firm outcomes should we look out for from this ministerial visit?
01:17Well, I think it's not a high-level, you know, prime ministerial visit where you're looking for big-ticket trade
01:22and investment deals.
01:23I mean, this is a political meeting.
01:25So I think the outcome is going to be clarity on China's position regarding Iran, clarity on China's position, particularly
01:34with Russia and Ukraine,
01:35which is very important for Britain, very concerned about the security situation with NATO,
01:41probably an understanding about what to do about the United States, which is looking very unstable at the moment.
01:48So it's a completely new dimension of the discussion.
01:51In the past, Britain's alliance with the United States was relatively unproblematic.
01:56Today, America is a less easy partner to predict under Mr. Trump.
02:02So I think that there's obviously going to be a lot of comparing of notes.
02:05I don't think that there'll be a big, hard political outcome because these aren't things that Britain can decide on
02:12its own, of course.
02:13But it's a key player in the UNP5.
02:16It's a key player in NATO.
02:18It's a key ally of the United States.
02:20So I think in that sense, it will obviously be very important for Britain to be informed about China's positions
02:26on things
02:26that it needs to then talk to its other allies about and decide what to do in itself.
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