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| Cartoon which appeared in The Times as Xi Jinping was leaving UK |
Have you heard of ‘Hollandisation?
It is a new concept in geopolitics.
The term is used to express “abandoning the pursuit of power, spending less on defence and stepping back from playing a role on the international stage.”
According to The Financial Times, this is what London did when it kowtowed to President Xi Jinping during his recent visit to the United Kingdom.
The FT commented that even “the US is worried about the ‘Hollandisation’ of Britain, [US] officials are particularly disconcerted with [Britain’s] stance on China.” The London-based paper added that British officials could just “haggle over whether the Sino-British relationship had entered a ‘golden decade’ or a ‘golden era’”.
But for Beijing, the visit was a resounding success.
President Xi and his First Lady Peng Liyuan were greeted by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron at the Horse Guards parade ground in central London where the Chinese President inspected the Grenadiers in scarlet tunics and bearskin hats. Xi was then granted a 41-gun salute.
Xi, his wife and their royal hosts took a 1km ride in a gilded carriage drawn by white horses, from the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
First small hitch, as the coach moved through the Mall, lined with China’s fans with British and Chinese red flags (supplied by the Chinese embassy), supporters of Free Tibet waved Tibetan flags with banners reading ‘Don’t trade away human rights’ and ‘China: Buying UK’s silence on Tibet’. But this does not seem to have much bothered a smiling Chinese President.
It however showed the dichotomy of today’s China: the Emperors of the mighty Middle Kingdom can dictate their will to most of the world’s governments, but not always to the ‘masses’.
Even if Cameron’s spokeswoman said: “There is nothing off the table in our discussions with the Chinese,” very few believed her.
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