This week on UnHerd we are considering how the West can do business with an ever more powerful China, the world’s biggest exporter and second biggest economy. Here, Bruno Macaes outlines the opportunity Brexit presents.
Leaving the European Union is often presented as an opportunity for the United Kingdom to go out into the world. Global Britain, they call it, a concept not devoid of logic.
By the very nature of their integration project, EU member states have to spend more time than they would like coming to terms with each other. Right now, for example, they are busy trying to reach an agreement on the next multi-year budget, when it might be more advisable for their attention to be fully focused on the clouds gathering over the global economy and global politics.
The UK has its hands full with the Brexit negotiations, but these – one hopes – will eventually come to an end. At which point, it might be advisable to have a strategy for the life outside the EU in place – one which takes into account all the dangers and opportunities presented by that painful separation.
So what kind of Britain will emerge after Brexit? Will it prosper? To know that, we need to know who it will be doing business with. What we can say with certainty is that in this new world Europe will count for far less than it does right now; in this world, four out of the five largest economies in the world will likely be located in Asia – none in Europe.
And so the success of global Britain depends far more on the relationships it can build with those Asian giants, than on strictly domestic political variables. A great British future will rely less on London and Brussels than on a third, hidden pole of magnetic attraction: Beijing.
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